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COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY TONAT PRINTING CO. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


CONTENTS 


Page 

FOREWORD ------ . 3 

AUTHOR’S PREFACE -. 5 

INTRODUCTION.- - 9 

CHAPTER I 

Analogy Between the Need of Reformation in the Six¬ 
teenth and Twentieth Centuries ----- 13 

CHAPTER II 

Definite Theses for Various Churches - - - - 39 

CHAPTER III 

Concisely Stated, Diversified, Epigrammatic Theses - 49 

CHAPTER IV 

Paragraphical Theses - -- -- -- - 63 

CHAPTER V 

Dangerous Shoals - - - -- -- -- 77 

CHAPTER VI 

Bigotry - -- --------- - 83 

CHAPTER VII 

The Master’s Withering Condemnation of Proselytism 93 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Modern Sale of Modern Indulgencies - - - 103 

CHAPTER IX 

National Sins - -- -- -- -- -- 109 

CHAPTER X 

Errors of Leaders—Evangelistic Malpractice - - 121 

CHAPTER XI 

Pharisaism and the Unpardonable Sin - 127 

CHAPTER XII 

The Burning Message of Christ’s forerunner - - 143 

CHAPTER XIII 

justification by Newly Invented Modern Methods 

Futile - -- -- -- -- -- - 159 

.CHAPTER XIV 

The How of Salvation—Futile Human Answers - 165 

CHAPTER XV 

The How of Salvation—The Answer of Jesus - - 181 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Lordship of Christ - -- -- -- - 195 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Lord’s Promise to Remove the Stony Heart 


213 











CHAPTER XVIII 

The Master’s Reason for His Life ----- 227 

CHAPTER XIX 

Christianity—a Manifestation of the Spirit of Christ - 237 

CHAPTER XX 

Complete Freedom Fond Only in Christ - 251 

CHAPTER XXI 

Complete Freedom Found Only in Christ - 251 

CHAPTER XXII 

Faith Begotten and Sustained by Manifestations of 

Super-Naturalism -.- 279 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Kind Words of Remonstrance with Sectarianists - 303 

CHAPTER XXIV 

The Sin of Disunity - -- -- -- - 319 

CHAPTER XXV 

Victory Chapter - 339 

CHAPTER XXVI 

The Triumphant Life - 353 

CHAPTER XXVII 

The Impossibility of Having Fellowship with God 

While Refusing His Humblest Followers - - 365 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

A Plea for Manliness - 395 

CPIAPTER XXIX 

The Spirit’s Manifestations - 403 








MODERN THESES 


OR 


THE NEED OF REFORMATION 
IN THE CHURCH 



By 


ARTHUR C. ZEPP 

M 


“When all the choric peal shall end, 

That through the fanes hath rung; 
When the long lauds no more ascend, 
From man’s adoring tongue; 

When whelmed are altar, priest and creed, 
When all the faiths have passed; 
Perhaps, from the darkening incense freed, 
God may emerge at last.” 
















DEC 22 72 

©C1A690677 

~WS1 -I 



MODERN THESES 


3 


When Jesus had finished cleansing the Temple of those 
that sold oxen, sheep and doves, pouring out the changers 
money and overthrowing their tables, then the disciples 
remembered that it was written—“The zeal of thine house 
hath eaten me up.”—(John 2:17). 

What a perfect picture of much present day Church- 
ianity! A quenchless zeal for secondary things in the 
house of God co-existent with the loss of the God-conscious¬ 
ness! That zvhich is heaviest does not weigh heaviest! 
Christ, the Head of the Church, an unreleased prisoner in 
His own House! Zeal for it, obscuring Him! Zeal for 
the externals of the House of God obliterating the vision of 
God! Our darkening incense hiding God! 

The task of the next Reformation will be to restore to 
us the lost sense of the presence of God so that men com¬ 
ing into the God-impregnated atmosphere shall report that 
u God is with you of a truth ” 

Christ shocked those who substituted devotion to the 
temple for devotion to God, by saying—“In this temple is 
One greater than the temple”—One greater than all of its 
formal service; One greater than all of its multiplied activi¬ 
ties; One greater than all of its socialized program; One 
greater than its forty and six years in construction, which 
the Jew boasted of in describing its greatness; One greater 
than its mammoth blocks of stone; One greater than nature 
zvhich yielded the material of its construction — Yea, One 
greater than the universe which the Pantheists adore but 
of whose Creator they are ignorant—(the created universe 
being an expression of His pozver, men not finding Him 
thru, it, primarily, although “day unto day uttereth speech , 
and night unto night showeth knowledge”—but truly appre¬ 
ciating it thru Him). 




4 


MODERN THESES 


Let us say of all temples made with hands that they 
cannot contain Him whom the heavens cannot contain; that 
He dwelleth not in temples made with men’s hands; let us 
say to all churches which arrogate to themselves the Name 
of God that there is One greater than their ecclesiastical 
system; One greater than all of its machinery; One greater 
than their “ISM”; One greater than all their form; One 
greater than their shibboleth; One greater than their 
most cherished tenets; One greater than their particular 
doctrinal moulds; One greater than their polity; One greater 
than their educational scheme—it is He who inhabiteth 
ETERNITY, whom the heavens cannot contain, much less 
the weak institutions of men! He who, by wondrous grace, 
has come, in this dispensation, to dwell in these earthen 
vessels—the bodies of regenerate men! 





MODERN THESES 


o 


AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

We intend this to be a pungently searching book; 
but fidelity and harshness are not identical. Fidelity to 
truth is perfectly consistent with the deepest love of 
the people. It is not love to silently suffer sin upon our 
fellows. This cowardly course renders the prophet a 
partaker of the sins of the people. Earnest, courageous 
protest, at wrong everywhere, is the highest evidence of 
Christlike love. Many a life has been saved by the sur¬ 
geon’s knife. And many a soul has been saved from 
sin and hell by those courageous preachers of righteous¬ 
ness who are termed by Christ the violent men who take 
the kingdom of heaven by force, (Matt., 11:12), or, as 
one marginal reading renders it, “They, (i. e., the violent 
men), who thrust men”, take the kingdom of heaven by 
force. How this recalls that similar statement from the 
Old Testament,—“Cursed be he that doeth the work of 
the Lord deceitfully, (R. V. negligently), and cursed be 
he that keepeth back his sword from blood.” (Jeremiah 
48:10). So, my dear reader, will you not remem¬ 
ber that back of the cutting, heart searching truth this 
book contains, is a heart of love? Whatever is said of 
wrong conditions in various movements in no wise 
reflects upon the good sincere people of God in those 
movements. 


-o- 

The following blunt, homely, Theses, are the out¬ 
come of much sorrow and agony of heart over the low 
state of spirituality in the Protestant churches and their 
allied offshoots. They were written after many days of 





6 


MODERN THESES 


fasting and prayer, and thirty-six nights of prayer dur¬ 
ing their preparation, in the course of as many weeks, 
and while preaching most of the time, once, twice, and 
in some instances, thrice daily. This does not imply that 
they were born in that brief compass of time, as the 
thoughts taking concrete form in them, are the result of 
from three to four hundred thousand miles of travel, and 
impartial, unprejudiced, actual observation of religious 
conditions in this country and Canada. Often, the agony 
of prayer for a revival in the whole body of Christ was 
like unto the expulsive stage of a woman in travail, as 
the heart was torn and bleeding over the disunity in the 
Church, and her consequent powerlessness. 

Many of the thoughts contained in this volume have 
been given the scientific test of verification; they have 
been preached under the signal seal and anointing of the 
Holy Spirit, and confirmed by the liberation from bond¬ 
age, of many souls, into the glorious, untrammeled lib¬ 
erty of the children of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus. 
This message is sent forth in faith, believing that God 
will further seal and own it. Whatever is helpful is from 
God; whatever is weak and unworthy is of the creature. 

Let me here record my deep consciousness of un 
worthiness to write the following hortatory paragraphs 
to my fellows. I write altogether as a sinner saved by 
grace alone, through faith, and as a subject of Him who 
justifies the ungodly. 

If it be said that some of the exposures are not typi¬ 
cal of New Testament Christianity in its highest form, 
let us consider that the world indiscriminatingly makes 
no distinction, and the organized church, in its low state 
of spirituality, fails to discern it, as a whole. There are. 




MODERN THESES 


7 


\ 


however, exceptions, so much counterfeit assuring the 
existence of the genuine, and bringing it to the light. 

The motive in depicting conditions as they are is 
not personal, but altogether a matter of fidelity to the 
trust God has committed unto us, and to the Truth. 
When a prominent co-worker of many of the leading 
exponents of the highest life, testifies that none of them 
live, under close observation, what they preach, in the 
interest of truth it is time to investigate and to throw 
quickly to the scrap pile, theories which do not meet the 
scientific test of verification. 

A book of over five hundred pages, recently written 
and published, entitled “Now It Can Be Told”, by a 
prominent war correspondent of Great Britain, Sir Philip 
Gibbs, is having a phenomenal circulation in this coun¬ 
try—in fact it is one of the most popular non-fiction 
books of the day. We are not aware that the writer of 
this startling book has been accused of lack of patriot¬ 
ism, or of treason, for making these startling revelations. 
There are things in the church that have not been told 
which we are telling, not in disloyalty nor unsympathe¬ 
tically, but solely in the hope and faith that they may be 
used of God to stir the church and the ministry, the 
writer and readers, to seek the remedy. 

The fact of the publication of this book is a miracle of 
faith, involving, as it does, several thousand dollars cost for 
the first economical edition of ten thousand copies, not a 
penny of which was in hand before the book was finished in 
manuscript form, but prayer being answered for its publi¬ 
cation when the manuscript was completed. 

ARTHUR C. ZEPP. 







MODERN THESES 


9 


INTRODUCTION 

It is not an easy matter to write an introduction to 
another man’s book. One cannot always follow clearly, 
the vision of another. The author of the present book 
has a vision, he has brought errors in the religious field 
to light and truth-seekers will appreciate the effort of 
the writer to clear the atmosphere. There is still much 
religious bondage in the world. This book is an earnest 
attempt to lead the soul into the liberty of Christ. The 
author has uncovered a Christian Phariseeism (if such 
an expression can be used) and a religious legalism 
which must be broken. 

The book is an attempt to lead back to the sim¬ 
plicity of the Gospel, and what earnest thinker is there 
that has not recognized that need? The book is, to 
some extent, written in an epigrammatic style, and to 
some readers this may prove tedious, but there are some 
truths which cannot be expressed in any other way. 
The ideas expressed have come as a result of experience 
and contact in a busy ministry. If it should seem to 
some cautious thinkers that some of the statements are 
too radical, it must be remembered that all pioneer 
thought errs on the radical side. Dr. Bruce has said, 
“One rash, but heroic, Luther, is worth a thousand men 
of the Erasmus type, unspeakably wise, but cold, pas¬ 
sionless, timid and time-serving.” 

There is certainly nothing timid and time-serving 
about this book. It is frank, open and straight to the 
point. It is the style of the cataract and not of the 
placid river. It will make people think and will shake 
our quiet dogmatisms and disturb our settled traditions. 




10 


MODERN THESES 


It will not be pleasant reading for the dogmatist or the 
traditionalist. It will disturb our sectarianism and 
awake our somnambulism. 

This book aims at the conversion of our religious 
ideas. It is a call to get back to simlplicity and to “rend 
our hearts and not our garments.” It has a prophetic 
note in it and belongs to the Elijah type and not to the 
prophets of Baal. 

The book calls back to Christ; 'Christ is the center of 
the vision. It will appeal to those whose hearts are 
crying, “Sirs, we would see Jesus.” 

It will not be necessary to endorse every statement 
the author has written to endorse the general trend of 
the book. The writer has been drinking at the fountain 
of Church History and he has seen the drift of the 
modern church and modern religious movements from 
the centre of Christianity, which is Christ. He has been 
comparing notes and thinks the advantage is with the 
past Reformers. 

I think the ideal of the book could be summed up 
in those splendid words of Sir Robertson Nicholl in “The 
British Weekly”—“The revelation is for us completed in 
Christ. It is God’s love that carries forward His redeem¬ 
ing purpose for us all and one by one. Mercy to the 
Psalmist means more than pardon; it was kindness, loyal 
affection on the part of God, deep fatherly consideration. 
We need that, and we have it proved to us in Christ 
Jesus. We see in Him that God’s power is most mani¬ 
fest in His love, in the moral sphere, not in the material; 
m His victory over sin and death, in His patience as He 
deals with the material of our faulty lives.” 

I have read the manuscript of the book and feel that 




MODERN THESES 


11 


there is real merit in it. The book is a message rather 
than a treatise. Its whole purpose, as I understand 
it, is to bring us from our legal and traditional tenden¬ 
cies back to the central fact of Christianity—Christ 
Jesus Himself. If it does this for any soul, it will have 
accomplished its mission to the Church. 

REV. GEORGE SHAW. 





MODERN THESES 


13 


Analogy Between the Need of Reformation 
In the Sixteenth and the Twentieth 
Centuries 

CHAPTER I 

Definition: The word Theses is from the Greek 
word Theosis, singular; plural, theses, meaning “to 
place”, to set, a thing laid down, a statement, a propo¬ 
sition ; specifically, a position or proposition which a per¬ 
son advances and offers to maintain. 

Martin Luther wrote ninety-five Theses against the 
abuses of the church of his day. Were he alive today, 
and should he attempt to write Theses covering the per¬ 
versions and abuses which have grown out of the Re¬ 
formation, of which he was the leading human instru¬ 
ment, he would need greatly to multiply the original 
number. In his day, one great church usurped the place 
of Christ; now the Protestant church is divided into 
endless sects; separate, apart, and often antagonistic 
each to the other; wrangling, jangling and warring 
among themselves and often as unsympathetic as the 
Jews and Samaritans of Christ’s time, who had no deal¬ 
ings one with the other, and this disunified state is the 
greatest hindrance to the work of Christ in the world; 
and worse yet, among the allied off-shoots of Protes¬ 
tantism, numerous factions who preach and profess the 
highest grace—the perfectly unifying blessing embodied 
in Christ’s intercessory prayer, who, in some instances, 
have a doctrinal unity which is belied by separation in 
practice. 

One cause of disintegration in all former Reform- 





14 


MODERN THESES 


ations was in the over-dependence upon some dominant 
human leader, as Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, 
Wesley; also in that they gathered about some distinc¬ 
tive doctrine, as for example, justification, predestina¬ 
tion, free grace or free will; the witness of the Spirit 
or sanctification. These distinctive words became slo¬ 
gans for exposition and defense; and while a merciful 
God overruled to much good their undue emphasis, the 
tendency was to obscure the Saviour, substituting con¬ 
formity to doctrines for Him, inducing a subtle idolatry 
of supposedly infallible tenets. 

Shortly before his death, Wesley cast about him to 
find reasons for the success of Methodism and concluded 
that it was because of their distinctive doctrines, their 
polity or form of church government, and their firm 
administration of discipline; whereas these were only 
contributary! God, the Personal God, Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, in the midst, was the great secret of their 
phenomenal power and growth, working with them, 
confirming the Word with the signs that followed. 

Should God grant a mighty Reformation ere the 
dispensation closes, the outstanding Personality in it, 
transcending all others, will be none other than He 
whom Scripture represents as “Fairer than the sons of 
men”; whom God has ordained in all things to have the 
preeminence, leading men, thru His Word and by His 
Spirit, not to partial views of truth, but “into all truth.” 
“The Lord of. Hosts hath purposed it”, wrote Isaiah, “to 
stam the pride of all glory and to bring into contempt 
all the honorable of earth”. Prophecy records, and his¬ 
tory confirms the law of rejection of all people failing 
God’s purpose and the new probation of untried nations 




MODERN THESES 


15 


or movements. The Jews failed God and God called the 
Gentiles; the Roman Church fails and God raises up 
Lutheranism; it lags, and Wesley is called and Metho¬ 
dism is given probation. She fails in measure, and the 
National Association is formed to call her back to pris¬ 
tine glory and power. Keswickianism, with its different 
emphasis on Perfectionism is tried, the Pentecostal 
Movement, and various independent movements, Mis¬ 
sionary and Higher Life, spring up, one after the other, 
and of all of them it may be said, in greater or less 
degree, that—“By and by each evangelical movement 
loses its free spirit and settles down into a new form 
of traditionalism”, zealously contending for the doc¬ 
trines which, when aflame, gave them being, but now, 
out from which the life and power have gone: and the 
words of Isaiah, while primarily spoken in relation to 
Israel, may be applied ultimately to them all (with of 
course the exception ever of God’s elect)—“And ye shail 
leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the 
Lord shall slay thee, and call his servants by another 
name; that he who blesses himself in the earth, shall 
bless himself in the God of truth.” Let us not boast that 
we are any kind of an “1st”. The true Church is an 
organism—“The Church which is His Body”—and 
someone has well said, and science verifies the state¬ 
ment, that “when we organize the organism corruption 
sets in.” 

“The Humanists of the sixteenth century tried to 
bring about Reformation by sharp polemic against the 
hierarchy and biting mockery of the stupidity of the 
popular religion, but they did not help the masses of 
the common people.” If we only expose error which is 




16 


MODERN THESES 


negative, we will not help the masses of the people. 
Without a positive vision of Jesus, the people perish. 

The purpose of this work is, as far as possible, to 
expose the poison of error and to point to the revela¬ 
tion of truth, its sure antidote. 

“History knows nothing of revivals of moral living 
apart from some new religious impulse.” Erasmus, the 
Humanist, had, with keenest sarcasm, pictured the cor¬ 
ruptions of the Roman Church, but he was not the 
prophet with the burning heavenly vision; he was like 
a man who tries to preach truth apart from the anointing 
of the Spirit, in the letter which kills and renders even 
truth powerless to offend; but the same truth from 
Luther's flaming heart, starts a Reformation, lights the 
fires of persecution and starts inquisition for blood! 

How far have we advanced from the old Roman 
law which demanded proof of the sincerity and loyalty 
of its subjects by compelling them to offer incense to 
the gods? We demand, often, by a law which is un¬ 
written, yet well understood, conformity to modern cus¬ 
tom and tradition and shibboleth and party; we manu¬ 
facture a new Christian (?) legalism and then cry for 
conformity to the god of our own making. When a 
great church organization puts on a financial program of 
vast proportions and makes harmony with it, en toto, 
the basis of recognition and promotion, virtually pro¬ 
nouncing woe to him who does not line up with the new 
god and burn incense to it, wherein does it differ from 
the Roman demand to sacrifice to the gods? 

Conformity! ‘WEosoever would be a man must be 
a non-conformist”, said Emerson, “as society is every¬ 
where a conspiracy against the manhood of its mem- 




MODERN THESES 


17 


bers.” But church organizations are crying—“Fall in 
line with the program of the majority,” right or wrong— 
“Conform to our doctrinal moulds”—and it is a sad thing 
that many churches have no use for the man who will 
not surrender his manhood and conform. Too often 
unless blind obedience is given, there is proscription and 
restriction, hindrance and banning, blockade and pogrom, 
and if there is persistent refusal, ultimately there comes 
the cry—“Away with him! To the lions!” 

We do not need to battle against the usurpations of 
the Hierarchy and its encroachment on the liberty of our 
souls, or fight for an unchained Bible and its transla¬ 
tion into the vernacular so that the laity may read the 
Word of God; or for the individual right of private 
judgment in arriving at the will of God and sole respon¬ 
sibility to God; or for the universal priesthood of be¬ 
lievers; and we need not win the battle for pure doc¬ 
trines, they have been accurately stated. Existing 
forms of church government can be little improved, or 
ritual, or form of worship. Orthodox we are to a fault. 
Our great need is to see the menace of a dead, dry, 
powerless orthodoxy which is destitute alike of fervor, 
fire and the power to transform lives! We are losing, or 
perhaps have practically lost, the power to make effective 
what of right doctrine we do believe! Ours is the para¬ 
dox of ineffective beliefs! The power of spiritual repro¬ 
duction is fast disappearing. This is a fearful omen! 
It is the death knell of the organized church, so that, 
as a friend said—“The church is rapidly passing as an 
institution.” 

Infanticide spells, ultimately, the death of a nation, 
and spiritual non-production, spells the death of a de- 




18 


MODERN THESES 


nomination. Our reproach is spiritual barrenness! (We 
are spiritually sterile and, like the daughters of old, we 
should go to some mountain and bitterly weep over our 
reproach among men. We are holding the truth in the 
unrighteousness of the letter which killeth! If we can¬ 
not preach the Gospel with the power of the Holy Ghost 
sent forth from heaven, we would benefit the people by 
closing all of our churches until, like John, the Baptist, 
we can come forth from some wilderness seclusion and 
speak in the name of God, clothed with authority and 
power. No preaching at all will benefit the people more 
than letter preaching—-it is a positive source of death— 
“The letter killeth !” This is our sin, brethren, we have 
been content to preach without power, when, by obedient 
asking, in faith, God would so clothe us with power that 
our words would be like fire, penetrating heart and 
conscience, and transforming lives. 

The battle of the Sixteenth Century and that of the 
Twentieth Century, is identical in many points: then 
there was the loss of the God-consciousness and the 
development of Church-consciousness as a substitute; 
then, and now, there was the program of men for guid¬ 
ance, rather than the Spirit of God; then, and now, the 
Hierarchy directed the study of young men for the 
ministry, to develop the thought that salvation inhered 
in, and was conveyed thru the organized church, with 
the substitution of the form for the power of God. All 
of their efforts were directed toward getting men into 
the organized church and keeping them in, rather than 
their induction into the kingdom of heaven by the birth 
of the Spirit. Reverence for creed, system and human 





MODERN THESES 


19 


program, obscured the vision of the Saviour—the living 
Saviour! 

That the reverence then, and now, was sincere, 
avails naught, as poison taken sincerely is as fatal as 
when taken in ignorance. How the wily adversary has 
ever thrust institutions between the souls of men and 
fellowship with God! Jesus is the only way to God, 
and systems have vainly been offered to appease the 
hunger for fellowship with a Person. Men then, as now, 
contended more for the traditions of men than for the 
words of Jesus. The Lutheran Reformers fought for a 
real, rather than a pretended Justification; of faith rather 
than of works; of God’s provision rather than of man’s. 
The same battle is ours, only the modern methods of 
justification by works are far more numerous than with 
the Church of Rome and harder to detect. There was 
then, also, a pretense of holiness and sanctity which 
rested in external devotion to the Church. Our battle is 
for unselfish, ethical, New Testament Holiness, in place 
of the theoretical, emotional, spasmodic, Pharisaical, im¬ 
practical type so prevalent in our day. 

In former time there was the propagation of ancient 
traditionalism and legalism, with the constant addition 
of new laws; now we have a newly manufactured Chris¬ 
tian (?) legalism, and traditions more subtle and diffi¬ 
cult of detection, which bind and hinder the freedom or 
the soul. Then there was the establishment of the in¬ 
fallible (?) church and its infallible (?) head, which 
usurped the place of God and Christ in the thought and 
affections of men; now, a thousand churches, with 
strong papal tendencies, and self-appointed lords over 
God’s heritage, substitute a Protestant popery for the 




20 


MODERN THESES 


old popery, and exhort men to join the church, instead 
of pressing the need of the new birth which would make 
them new creatures in Christ Jesus, and give to them the 
glorious liberty of those whom the Son makes free! 

Just recently a prophecy of approaching dire sick¬ 
ness as an afflictive judgment of God was made to a man, 
unless he would leave, by a certain day, his responsible 
position in the business realm (for which he was emin¬ 
ently fitted) and head for the pulpit. What difference if 
the Pope intimidates me, or if someone who claims su¬ 
perior spirituality and knowledge of the ways of God, 
does it? Whether he shall leave his business is alto¬ 
gether a matter between himself and God, a matter of 
such moment to him that no partisan zealot can decide 
for him. “Every man shall give an account of himself to 
God.” How similar are the threats of judgment pro¬ 
nounced by certain religious workers, and the unwar¬ 
ranted banning and curses of old! 

Jas. McConkey has well said: “Take God’s plan, and 
consecration to it, to Christian men, and straightway 
many of them think you mean them to give up their busi¬ 
ness and head at once for the pulpit or the foreign mis¬ 
sionary field. To come into God’s life-plan is to go into 
some other place, as they view it. But there never was 
a greater mistake. Consecration is not necessarily dis¬ 
location. Not by any means. God’s plan for a man’s 
life does not of necessity lift him out from his present 
realm of life and surroundings. It is not a new sphere 
God is seeking, but a new man in the present sphere. It 
is not transference but transformation! The trouble is 
not usually with the place; it is with the man in the 
place. And so when a man consecrates his life to God 





MODERN THESES 


21 


to find and enter into God’s perfect plan for that life, 
God will usually keep him right where he is, but living 
for God and His kingdom, instead of for self. So, until 
God shows you differently, stay where you are and live 
for God.” 

A woman whose face shines like heaven, was ex¬ 
communicated from a holiness church but recently, for 
disloyalty, not to Christ, but to the services of the 
Church. 

We have also an antinomianism in disguise, the sub¬ 
stitution of the Twentieth Century super-enlightened (?) 
conscience, which sets aside the Word of God as the only 
safe guide for faith and practice; and the so-called 
“Higher” Criticism too, each as surely endeavoring to 
set aside the Law of the Lord as the Roman Hierarchy 
ever did, with ever increasing menace to securing man’s 
consent to Christ’s Lordship. 

MULTIPLICITY OF DAYS AND DEVOTION 
TO SYMBOLS 

Rome multiplied fast days, feast days and high days, 
to substitute for the lost conciousness of God, but 
wherein is she more zealous than we who have so mul¬ 
tiplied days in the church calendar that like Paul we ex¬ 
claim—we are fallen from grace, whoever we are that 
observe a day, or worship a symbol or place any faith 
therein. 

There is nothing for us in His symbolic Star, but 
all in Him whom it symbolized. A friend suggests— 
“The wise men were wiser than we are. They said, 'We 
have seen His star and have come to worship HIM’.” 




22 


MODERN THESES 


Not to worship His star! They were not mere star¬ 
gazers, mere symbol-worshippers. They looked past 
the sign to the One whom the sign signified. Our dan¬ 
ger is that too often we seize symbols of Christ and out¬ 
standing days in the Christian Calendar and pour out our 
devotion to them and thus lose Him thru the symbols. 
We take the symbolic names without their Christlike 
content, hence we have meaningless symbols. We have a 
mania for flaunting the high sounding names which, with¬ 
out content, make us ludicrous before the world:— 
“Christian”, “Disciple”, “Nazarene”, “Church of God”, 
“Pentecostal”, “Apostolic”, “Holiness” and “Holiness 
Christian.” These high-sounding, pious, sanctimonious 
names often become the handicap of those who arrogate 
to themselves fitness to be called by them. One is re¬ 
minded of the little dingy basement restaurants in our 
Capitol, with such names as “The White House Lunch”, 
or “The Senate Restaurant”, in vivid contrast to some 
magnificent hostelry with a modest name. 

It is so, often, is it not, that the greater pretention, 
the less content. God give us, not great names for our 
churches, but great content. One man told us that he 
was about to launch a copyrighted, sacred Church, to 
be named—“The Church of the Galilean.” The exclu¬ 
sive copyright to use and control by the signatories, 
would alone indicate its foreignness in nature to the 
original Galilean, Who, Himself, never legally incor¬ 
porated the Church, “which is His Body”; rather, He 
labored to get the kingdom of heaven within men and 
to build them up in the most holy faith. Thank God, the 
“Galilean Church” has not been launched—may it never 




MODERN THESES 


23 


be. If it were it would be but one more barrier to the 
heart unity of all believers. 

How often our holy names and symbols are mean¬ 
ingless, and worse than meaningless, interpreted in the 
light of US who wear them! One preacher, in a Sunday 
morning service, as he surveyed his un-Christlike con¬ 
gregation, wailed out of a broken heart—“Oh, my God, 
are these people what I have made them? Are they 
the product of my kind of preaching ?” The middle 
initial to one’s name formerly stood for the middle name. 
We once asked a little girl what the .initial “L” in her 
name stood for, and were amazed at her response—“It 
don’t stand for nothing, it is just put in for the looks.’’ 
So it is, is it not, with some of our sacred symbols, 
seasons, days, names? They used to stand for some¬ 
thing, but interpreted in the light of US, too often they 
are meaningless. 

There is nothing for the soul, in the celebration 
merely of days; nothing in the mechanical program- 
observance of Christmas Day. But there is everything 
for us in Him who was born thereon. There is nothing 
in Easter Day with its Cantatas and Oratorios, but there 
is everything heart and life need in HIM who burst the 
gates of death on that day. The hallowed memories 
which this day brings, are worth little unless He is our 
life. It is Faith in the Hallowed One who rose from the 
grave on Easter Day, which insures our justification. It 
is easily seen that in forgetting Him whom they are sup¬ 
posed to honor, these days are coming to have so much 
place in our thought. We celebrate them in His honor 
while we dishonor Him by failing to exhibit their signi¬ 
ficance in daily life. Good Friday, Palm Sunday, Easter 





24 


MODERN THESES 


Day, Christmastide, are no more fraught with blessing 
to him who has enthroned Christ in the heart by faith, 
than any other day in the calendar. Sunday is no more 
sacred than Monday, per se, to the soul with the transcendent 
vision of the Preeminent One. 

Let Rome substitute devotion to days if she will, but 
let true Protestants worship the Creator of all days. Just 
this past Easter a minister’s wife said to the writer that 
she had been so busy training the children for an Easter 
Recital or Cantata that she could not attend a revival 
where the Lord was raising souls with Christ to newness 
of life. 

Oh, let us stop playing Church and get back to 
Christ! Let us spend our energies in direct soul-saving 
activities and in the edification of believers. Let us not 
be side-tracked by secondary things! This is no time 
for trifling! Thousands are alarmed at the deadness in 
church services and are crying to God to send them 
anointed preachers of the truth. This is no time for 
compromise. Let us co-operate with Christ in that type 
of work which will not be burned by judgment fires, 
while we ourselves are saved by the narrowest margin 
and our life service spent in vain because we abounded 
in secondary church work rather than in the direct work 
of the Lord! Mother’s Day, Fathers’ Day, Independence 
Day, Decoration Day, National Days, and Days or Even¬ 
ings with Poets, may all be well in their place, but a day 
with the Lord’s gracious presence richly manifested to 
our hearts will be better than a thousand days, as David 
wrote, and will include all the possible good all the other 
days can contain. 

One church calendar, (to indicate the trend of the 




MODERN THESES 


25 


times) said, “Everything must point to Easter, the great¬ 
est day of the year and the most significant in the Chris¬ 
tian Calendar.” Nay everything should point to Christ, 
each day alike and all the year! 

We make too much of the crucifixion and not 
enough of the One crucified; too much of the cross and 
too little of Him who died thereon. We sing sentimen¬ 
tally about cherishing the old rugged cross, and if we 
have in mind only the sign and not Him who was im¬ 
paled thereon, any Roman Catholic can outdo us at that. 
We may decorate ourselves and our churches with 
emblems of the cross, but the question is, how much do 
we know of its crucifying power—a double crucifixion— 
the world crucified unto us and we unto the world? 

We do not mean to write that emblems have no 
meaning, but we have a brief to plead the Saviour’s 
cause as paramount to bare zeal for emblems. During 
the days of the Reformation, the inquisitors asked a man 
to cherish the crucifix. He replied that he would cherish 
the Christ who died on the Cross. They burned him at 
the stake! Do we see the difference between a senti¬ 
mental, emotional, meaninglesss cherishing of the cross, 
and the acceptance of Him who died thereon, and can 
we say from our hearts’ depths—“I am crucified with 
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me, and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the 
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me?” 

Spiritual, as well as natural senses, are dulled by 
routine. We have inherited Christian activities, or 
church activities, without Christian experiences until we 
think Christianity consists in outward activities more 
than inward being from which all right Christian activi- 




26 


MODERN THESES 


ties flow. We are aping the output of the Christian life 
without Christ and regeneration. Applied Christianity 
is the least need of our day, as that may easily be coun¬ 
terfeited. Applied Personality—fellowship with Christ 
—is our supreme need!! 

PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH—MODERNIST 
VERSION OF THE BIBLE 

MODERNISTS TELL US THAT THE PUR¬ 
POSE OF THE CHURCH IS TO: 

1. “Furnish Institutional Religion.” 

The Word of God says we are to proclaim 
the good news of salvation thru faith in Christ’s 
finished work. 

2. “To create and maintain worship.” 

The Word of God says we are to proclaim 
the good news of baptism with the Holy Spirit, 
without which the worship God seeks in us is 
impossible. 

3. “To create personal character.” 

The Word of God describes our natural 
state—“The heart is deceitful above all things 
and desperately wicked, who can know it?” 

And points to our only deliverance—“Christ, in 
you, the hope of glory.” 

4. “To maintain and direct public morality.” 

The Word of God directs to Repentance for 
its lack and begets true, personal morality, by 
spiritual re-birth. 

All of which is attempted salvation by the Protestant 




MODERN THESES 


27 


Institution called the Church, and obscures salvation by 
Faith in a Person. What must I do to be saved? There 
is none other NAME under heaven whereby we must 
be saved. The Lord has many true subjects comprising 
His elect, in the visible institution called the church, but 
they are not His primarily because they are in the 
Church, but because the Head of the true Church is in 
them! 


* * * * 

Prior to the Reformation, large cities usurped pri¬ 
macy over the smaller ones and the pastors of their 
churches usurped lordship over the pastors of the 
smaller city churches. Is this same spirit not now with 
us in all branches of Protestantism? The man from the 
First Church is given deference and preference not 
accorded the poor circuit rider. Instead of One, even 
Christ, the common Master of all, and all brethren in 
Him, there was then, and is now, the sinful respect of 
persons which ignores the brotherly covenant. Instead 
of being ensamples to the flock, ambitious men, anxious 
for leadership, lord it over God’s heritage. 

Then the Bible also, instead of being the only source 
of spiritual truth, was regarded as only one source. Iz 
is the same in this Twentieth Century, when so-called 
enlightened conscience is placed on a par with the Word 
of God, and ofttimes exalted above it.* There was 
merit, they claimed, in the blood of Christ, but also 
merit in the blood of others. How this brings to mind 
what men have recently spoken from platform and pul- 


*See the Author’s book—“Conscience Not a Safe Guide.” 





28 


MODERN THESES 


pit that the shedding of the soldier’s blood for his coun¬ 
try, squared his account with God (even tho he died with 
an oath on his lips) and that the shed blood of the sol¬ 
diers in the world war, in the aggregate, was necessary 
to help purify the world. How blasphemous to put on 
an equality, the blood of unregenerate man, “dead in 
trespasses and sin”, with the blood of God’s only begot¬ 
ten Son, “who knew no sin”, but who was “made sin for 
us that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
Him.” Wondrous grace! Marvelous condescension!! 

No company of ecclesiastics, ancient or modern, 
have the right to impose a course of study on a man 
whom God has called to preach which hinders him from 
pursuing the course of study which God has chosen for 
him. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a 
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly divid¬ 
ing the Word of Truth.” Not, study the subtleties of 
the school-men or the destructive critics, the mod¬ 
ernists or the teachers of Darwinism. No body of men 
have the right to choose what the man called of God 
shall preach; he must preach the message God bids him 
and he is under no obligation to side-track the Gospel 
for the suggestions of any modern papal throne, mas¬ 
querading under the guise of Church Headquarters. Is 
there not here a relation to the custom of Rome, which 
interprets the Bible for its young men, when we choose 
and force upon our young men a course of study with 
which God has nothing to do? Is not the anointing 
which we have received of Him essentially our Teacher? 
“When He the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide 
you into all truth.” Have Protestant Popes any more 
right to usurp the Spirit’s place as Teacher, Guide and 





MODERN THESES 


29 


Illuminator, than the Roman? Do we not need again to 
sound the note of the Sixteenth Century Reformers that 
the souls of all men are amenable to God only and that 
no one has the right to bind a single thing upon them 
which God Himself does not indicate? In all of these 
remarks, we would not discountenance the gift of teach¬ 
ing, nor fail duly to appreciate the light on the Word of 
God which Spirit-filled teachers have been permitted, by 
His grace, to shed. 

PAPAL TENDENCIES EVERYWHERE 

We were struck with the prayer (which may at first, 
appeal to our sense of humor) of an earnest soul who 
was lamenting the spiritual barrenness of Protestantism 
—“O, Lord, we have nothing to say against the form of 
others, we have too much form of our own; we have nj 
complaint to make against the Roman Pope, we have 
too many popes of our own; too many Protestant popes; 
too many independent popes; to many church bosses in 
all branches of Protestantism.” 

A new church recently organized, tells its devotees 
in its offcial communique, organ of the new Hierarchy, 
that no matter where they are located in the wide world 
it is their duty to send their tithes to the Mother Church! 
Whence this arrogance and papal assumption? Why 
this craze to organize and own? Why not be content to 
feed the Master’s sheep, the FLOCK OF GOD, not the 
flock of the Mother Church. Here is the echo of Catho¬ 
licism and Eddyism. They are assuming perogatives 
over the Lord’s heritage for which there is no warrant- 
ip the Word of God. Cannot God be trusted to lead H^s 




30 


MODERN THESES 


own into all truth and to direct the disbursement of the 
offerings where He will? We fear that often the love for 
the fleece is mistaken for love for the sheep and when the 
fleece is cut off, too frequently the care of the sheep 
ceases because they were not loved purely for Christ’s 
sake. How does this spirit differ from that in others 
who make no claim to piety? Lodgemen, Mormons, 
Socialists, Anarchists, Reds, Bolshevists and every other 
party extant pay tribute to Headquarters to get as much 
again. And does not their interest cease too when the 
member ceases to pay tribute? 

Another requires a solemn vow of those joining his 
new Hierarchy that they shall always give a sacred 
preference to the services of his Church. This is an 
assumption of superiority or downright selfishness, both 
foreign to the Spirit of Christ. What fallible man has 
the right to bind the conscience of his fellows? Their 
right to receive his vow is as great. What if one, as 
often is the case, is more able to steal and to corrall, to 
coop and pen, to shear and brand or label sheep, than he 
is qualified to feed them the well-balanced ration they 
must have in order to thrive? A sheep corrall with a 
high fence to keep others out who will not receive the 
brand and to hold those entrapped therein lest they wan¬ 
der to other corralls, may bear a high-sounding, sacred 
name, but it is not the same as a hay-rick filled with 
tender, succulent, alfalfa or clover! Bees need take n:> 
vow to go to the flowers which harbor the sweetest nec¬ 
tar, nor sheep to the pastures where there are the most 
tender shoots of grass. Even so, the Lord’s sheep will, 
by instinct, find the best pasture. 

What if Christ should come to town? The solemn 




MODERN THESES 


31 


covenant has been irrevocably taken and may not be 
broken under penalty, not of Papal excommunication 
and cursing, but of Protestant or Holiness or Alliance 
or Pentecostal banning and boycott and anathema and 
accusations of apostacy—of not going on with God be¬ 
cause of not following them. The lofty Church name 
and promise of vast superiority does not assure a bill of 
fare of the finest of the wheat; or of the pure beaten oil 
of the Word; or the old corn of the land. Anecdotes, 
narratives (sometimes manufactured out of whole cloth) 
stock expressions, illustrations frazzled with use and 
nauseatingly familiar, flat, stereotyped expressions, re¬ 
ligious shibboleths, cliches of the new party, stale, famil¬ 
iar platitudes, soon become obnoxious. The hollowness 
too, of plagairized sermons, soon demonstrates the fact 
that the changed label has not broken the old bondage, 
either for leader or duped followers. 

No man is under any obligation to follow any man 
or men, church, party or movement only as they follow 
the Pattern given us on the Holy Mount, which is Christ. 
And no one is under any obligation, no matter under 
what auspices the vow was taken, to go forever any¬ 
where because of a blind vow imposed by someone who 
had as much need to submit to vows as to administer 
them. All men in Christ Jesus are free to go to worship 
where the Holy Spirit within them impels, and they are 
amenable to no fellow mortal for so doing. They are 
obligated of God to go where they receive most spiritual 
food and where they can do the most good to their fel- 
lowmen. Some will be up in arms and cry—“Come 
outism! Anarchism! Bolshevism! But let all who 
claim the call to preach demonstrate it by ministering 





32 


MODERN THESES 


f 


V. 


the Word of God in the power and demonstration of the 
Spirit and they need not be alarmed lest they have no 
one to whom to preach. But with what little grace can 
any group who itself bore the name “Come-outer”, hurl 
this derision at others ? As to the sacredness of the vow, 
all false vows should be broken. The error is not in 
breaking from them but it was in making them in the 
first place. 

In olden times the priest had to maintain the system, 
right or wrong. We need heed lest we imitate him and 
support other systems, right or wrong, and thus fail to 
demonstrate a prominent principle of Protestantism. To 
give or conform to systems without manly protest at 
wrong in them, with the motive to gain from them as 
much—do not publicans and sinners do the same? An 
undue devotion to any system which usurps the place 
of God in our thoughts and affections, is bowing to an 
idol as literally as does the heathen. God is calling for 
men, not mere priests and preachers and blind conform¬ 
ists to the established order! God save all preachers 
from being mere preachers and not men! It takes real, 
consecrated manhood to be a true preacher of the Word. 
It is no child’s play. 

We may have the despicable, grovelling spirit in 
any of the Protestant Churches, or so-called independent 
churches, as did the poor bond slaves of the Hierarchy 
of Luther’s time, working the soft pedal on conviction, 
fawning and flattering and “having men’s persons in 
admiration because of advantage”, seeking to please men 
rather than God, nursing our reputations, working our 
way in with the Committee, pulling the wires for a return 
call, aping those we condemn in Conference wire-pull- 





MODERN THESES 


33 


ing. The need now is as imperative, to break for liberty 
in Christ from all tendencies to bondage, as it was in 
Luther’s or Wesley’s time, and greater "as we see the 
day approaching.” 

The Catholic leaders instilled in the minds of the 
youth preparing for the priesthood, the absolute supre¬ 
macy of the church. While the analogy does not hold 
between it and many of our Protestant churches, there 
are dangerous tendencies evident. It matters little if 
one be under the spell of an ancient error or a modern 
one with a new label on the old principle of bondage. 
The writer, with eight earnest intercessors, labored for 
four hours in intense intercessory prayer for the break¬ 
ing of the deceptive spell a Lutheran preacher had cast 
over a young man, deceiving him into the belief that 
Catechism, Confirmation, Communion and Lutheran 
church-joining were the same as the birth of the Spirit 
from heaven. Our Methodist, Presbyterian, and other 
churches are receiving members too, without the birth 
of the Spirit. There will be a fearful accounting day for 
some pastors! 

All the other churches outside the church of Rome 
may be as orthodox as the Pharisee, and as powerless. 
A spiritually dead papal system is no more a menace to 
the soul’s salvation by faith than a dead Protestant 
orthodoxy out of which all spiritual power has gone. 
Death, in the darkness of wrong views, is no less deplor¬ 
able than the death touch on our right views; holding 
the truth in unrighteousness is as dangerous as error. 
There is no more life in the Protestant "letter” than in 
the Roman. When new forms replace the old forms 
without power, they hinder the way to the kingdom of 




3* 


MODERN THESES 


God as much as do the old forms. We may have a 
Protestant, Lutheran, Holiness, Alliance, Independent 
and Pentecostal form of godliness, without the power 
thereof, as the church of Rome, to repudiate whose pow- 
eriessness, we have the name “Protestant.” 

We need a new Protestantism which will protest 
against a Protestantism which does not protest at its 
own inertia, its own death, its form and its powerless 
ritual. 

New Testament prophecy states that the time will 
come, when they, who have the form of godliness, will 
not endure sound doctrine. Good Bishop Warren said 
sixteen years ago—“Brethren, that time has come!” I 
think one patent reason for this is that men do not per¬ 
petuate their consecration. Take an illustration from the 
monetary standpoint of consecration: many thousands, 
fifty years ago, made a full surrender and were filled 
with the Holy Ghost, when, in those pioneer days, they 
had little, materially, to consecrate. The Government 
gave them land valued at $1.25 per acre, which has since 
enhanced in value until it is worth $1,000.00 per acre, 
in numerous instances, and in others, where cities have 
been built on it, much more. This has made them 
wealthy in thousands of instances, and they have not 
kept their consecration apace with their increased pros¬ 
perity, and the Spirit has been grieved. Yet they will 
pray Lord, bless us as Thou didst fifty years ago.” 
He would gladly do so, but He cannot give a thousand- 
dollar-per-acre-valuation blessing on the old dollar and 
a quarter per acre consecration, of fifty years ago! 

The writer knows two men (of many others) worth 
a million dollars who, from simple, equitable statements 




MODERN THESES 


55 


like the above, were unable to sleep all night and left the 
Camp-Ground; and six men who went blustering from 
the tabernacle because the preacher said that the holi¬ 
ness standard of the New Testament could not be main¬ 
tained by holding one-ten-day Camp Meeting each year 
—but that it touched the heart, life, and purse, all the 
year round, or not at all. 

There has been an unwarranted generosity on the 
part of the holiness people in giving wholesale, the pas¬ 
sage we are considering on the non-endurance of sound 
doctrine, to what they term nominal churches. These 
are doubtless involved in the guilt, but rather is the pas¬ 
sage directed to the professors of godliness (holiness).— 
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound 
doctrine”—Who will not endure sound doctrine?—Those 
who “having a form of godliness deny the power there¬ 
of.” They “heap to themselves teachers having itching 
ears” and woe be to the man who dares train the gun on 
the reality of the situation! 

When movements which started in power, concrete 
into new form, they become persecutors of the men and 
the rejectors of the preaching which begat them. 

History proves that all religious movements, ere 
long, settle down into a new form of traditionalism; they 
seek to bind men to their new forms and names. New 
leaders arise, who know not Joseph, and take the reigns 
of government, men who are not in sympathy with the 
vision and need and sacrifice which gave them being, 
and look upon them rather as so many livings, the best 
of which are to be coveted and nursed, as channels of 
self-aggrandizement; as an arena for the exaltation of 
self; as a sphere in which an easy living is to be made; 




36 


MODERN THESES 


choosing them as spheres of professional ministry, just 
as the lawyer might choose law, or the doctor medicine; 
and hence, where there is no vision of the real purpose 
of the church and ministry, the people perish. They 
preach the new cliche and conform to the new system, 
with the result that individuality and independence of 
thought and Christian liberty are at an end. The fear of 
a pensionless old age may enter into the consideration of 
a time-serving ministry, and like the man who hopes for 
the pension by and by in the great business organization, 
they study not to offend. The writer heartily believes 
that God will sustain and support “e’en down to old age’*, 
all who preach the Gospel of God in the power of the 
Spirit. 

Confusion, Babel, are fitting words to describe the 
religious situation today. A man who is devoted to set¬ 
ting folks right religiously, condemns all higher critics in 
one breath, with their denial of the supernatural, and in 
the next breath he denounces the pure manifestation of 
God’s power in healing the body. The Methodist Epis¬ 
copal Church, unfriendly to its most distinctive doctrine 
—“holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”— 
welcomes the Pentecostal people, who, in turn, have no 
particular love for the “Holiness” people, and they, them¬ 
selves, are roundly condemned by the holiness people as 
being heretical, fanatical, and altogether of the devil. 

There is no sect extant, nor any creedal statement, 
nor is it in the power of any one to invent them, on which 
all can get together in unity. A council could deliberate 
forever to formulate grounds of union and all their 
schemes of union would be utterly futile—but the instant 
we all sit at the feet of Jesus and receive the baptism of 




MODERN THESES 


37 


His Spirit into One Body, there is an indescribable, in¬ 
comprehensible, perfect unity, and though from every 
race, color, clime, nation and denomination, we are one 
in Christ and members one of another. Ah, He is the 
panacea for all our discord and division for “He is our 
peace ,, . He is the Great UNIFIER! “One is your 
Master and ALL YE ARE BRETHREN”!! 





















# 












































































MODERN THESES 


39 


Definite Theses for Various Churches 

CHAPTER II 

All church organizations and religious movements 

are composed of that flesh which is grass. None are 
inherently superior, and with the most exalted profession 
of having reached finality in higher or deeper life, doc¬ 
trine and experience, everywhere there co-exists a host 
of lower life characteristics: covetousness, unfairness, 
avarice, refusal to speak to neighbors and enemies, un¬ 
lawful separation of wives from husbands, sinful anger, 
an unforgiving spirit, neglect of obligations, immorality, 
violent rage at prospective motherhood, oppression and 
studied injury of competitors, misrepresentation of busi¬ 
ness transactions, plural wives and husbands, spiritual 
pride and prejudice against those not sharing the same 
religious views,* narrowness and selfishness, and, in 
many instances (just as the Romans substituted pagan¬ 
ized activities for true Christianity) men hide their sel¬ 
fishness behind great zeal for healing, speaking in 
tongues, profession of holiness and church membership. 

Everywhere I go I find people with the conviction 
that things in the Church are not right, that we have lost 
our way, that God is not in the midst, that preachers 
have lost their vision and preach professionally for hire, 
seeking to confirm their flocks in the narrowness of sel¬ 
fish sectarianism; and many of these awakened people 


•The author knows of the refusal of Higher Life publishing 
houses to aid the circulation of a book which had to its credit the 
salvation of several souls and the help of hundreds of others 
because of a divergence in doctrine, which, without comment is 
stated in quotations from the Word of God. So far may preju¬ 
dice lead good men. 






40 


MODERN THESES 


have a greater insight into the need of the hour than 
their leaders:—today, as of old, the leaders of the people 
too often cause them to err. Many have a deep, insatia¬ 
ble hunger for freedom, and already, by faith, they can 
be seen breaking for liberty by the thousands. The 
people have been loathe to accuse their leaders of sel¬ 
fishness and narrowness, but the facts are too apparent 
to be denied. 

Just recently a traveling man said to the writer: “I 
have tried to put a charitable construction on what 
seemed to be the narrowness of my church and pastor, 
but when church and pastor opposed me and ejected me 
from the church and Sunday School because I suggested 
co-operation with others, I was compelled to know the 
truth I had suspected.” 

Of most religious movements extant it may be said, 
in large measure, that—“all men seek their own and not 
the things of Christ.” The pathetic part of the situa¬ 
tion is that all of the mistaken zealots seem to think that 
they are right and claim to be working hard for unity, 
but they mean unity not purely in Christ, but in their 
sect: the hydrolater wants it, but in the water; the Pen- 
tecostals want unity but on the basis of all speak¬ 
ing in tongues; the healer wants unity on the basis 
of all seeing as he does on the basis of bodily healing; 
the ecclesiastic wants unity but it is an organic unity of 
his church, not in Christ; the sectarianist wants unity 
but it is on the basis of his sect; the foot-washer wants 
unity but he feels others do not go far enough if they 
do not participate in the ordinance so dear to him, but 
so often a mere form; the Pharisee wants unity but on 
the basis of his traditionalism; the come-outer wants 




MODERN THESES 


41 


unity, but on the basis of coming out of all organized 
churches—but there is really only one unity and that is 
the unity of the Spirit; one Lord, one faith, one bap¬ 
tism, the unity of the Body (the true believers) with 
its Head (Christ), giving those who receive it heart 
fellowship. 

But how sad to see on every side—narrowness, 
bigotry, lack of fellowship among those whom God fel¬ 
lowships, within and without other churches; sinful 
respect of persons—in honor preferring themselves and 
their own, rather than others; over-emphasis of some 
one phase of truth (and that often relatively non-impor- 
tant) as though it were the whole of truth; magnifying 
the minor while passing over the major; thinking the 
ray was the whole sun; mistaking a drop from the ocean 
for the whole ocean, and a chip of the diamond for the dia¬ 
mond: one star has been mistaken for the firmament—a 
part of the Gospel has been mistaken for the whole 
Gospel. 

Commingled with a narrow perspective of truth has 
been an almost fanatical zeal to arouse enthusiasm in 
others for a partial Gospel, ofttimes perverted, and con¬ 
demnation of others who do not share their zeal. Let 
us ever remember that there is no truth which the lop¬ 
sided movements hold which is not included in the life 
of every well-rounded Christian. 

The foot-washer, in enthusiasm for that practice, 
too often overlooks the sin of avarice, covetousness, and 
the sinful hoarding of treasures on earth; the holiness 
professor will often substitute for the devotion and 
entire surrender to Christ, enthusiasm for his doctrine 
and experience. The Pharisee will substitute his acti- 




42 


MODERN THESES 


vities and zeal for tradition, for that justice, mercy and 
faith which God desires; the Pentecostal man often has 
an exaggerated conception of the importance of speak¬ 
ing in tongues, (whereas that is one of the lesser gifts, 
which Paul wrote was not to be forbidden if properly 
exercised), but how much more important that it be 
accompanied by the far weightier characteristics of Pen¬ 
tecost as witnessed by the unselfish spirit of the com¬ 
munity of goods, unity, and sacrifice of all for Christ. 

PROTESTANT CHURCHES AND INDULGENCES 

Although often little suspected, the principle of the 
sale of Indulgences is with us, even in our day, necessi¬ 
tating Reformation. 

The sale of Indulgences may be of two kinds: (1) 
open, and (2) veiled. Tetzel’s indulgences were sold 
openly, under the clear light of the sun, while modern 
indulgences are veiled and difficult of detection. The 
principle is the same—the form only is changed. What 
boots it if the donation for the construction of St. Peter’s 
at Rome be given in the form of an open indulgence, 
bought from Tetzel, duly signed and sealed, embodying 
the privileges thereto, or if it be a secret concession of 
Christianity and Christian service to an ungodly modern 
business man, on the payment of a liberal donation which 
has been obtained thru violation of the right of his fel¬ 
lows, to build for a leading denomination the finest 
representative, granite, million-dollar temple in the 
National Capital, to help conserve denominational pres¬ 
tige? 

The Omniscient eye of Jehovah sees thru both de- 




MODERN THESES 


43 


moralizing transactions. In either instance, the sacri¬ 
fice of the wicked is an abomination to the Almighty, 
and His woe is upon him that justifies the wicked for 
reward. 

Construction of fine Protestant Temples for formal 
worship does not satisfy Him who dwells not in temples 
made with men’s hands, any more than building St. 
Peter’s at Rome, for His desire is to inhabit the heart and 
to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. 

It matters little whether the Pope grant the open 
indulgence to sin to its purchaser (remitting the so- 
called ecclesiastical penalty) or if an ambitious modern 
Protestant churchman concedes the veiled indulgence in 
the form of a memorial to the Christian (?) millionaire 
(who corners wheat, or holds eggs, or whose predatory 
wealth exists because of un-Christlike advantage over 
his fellows in withholding necessities, or making the 
price prohibitive), meanwhile going beyond Rome in 
exemption from the ecclesiastical penalty, and often 
seeking to lift the eternal penalty by denying Hell. 

* * * * 

LUTHERAN CHURCH. 

Lutheranism rose up to rebuke salvation by works, 
false unity and traditionalism. Rome has little advan¬ 
tage over her in the multiplicity of works for salvation; 
the name of the works only is changed—it is salvation 
by Lutheran works and Lutheran traditionalism. For 
unity, the security lies in the Lutheran Church rather 
than in fellowship with Christ. 

Modern Lutheranism is rapidly reverting to type, 




44 


MODERN THESES 


substituting salvation by catechism, confirmation, com¬ 
munion and church-going (Lutheran church-going) for 
the original simple justification by faith, direct, (without 
the mediation of catechism or church confirmation) in 
the finished work of Christ, and His shed blood and 
righteousness. 


* * * * 

CHURCHES OF GOD, CHURCH OF THE 
BRETHREN, DUNKARDS, MENNONITES, AMISH 

Foot-washing, practiced as an ordinance, is not the 
equivalent of heart-washing in the blood of Christ as a 
conscious experience and life. It is not an invariable 
sign of humility, as that is not of the external, but of the 
heart, and unless the soul has drunk deep in the humility 
of Christ, there will be in the participation in this ordi¬ 
nance, the deepest of all pride—the pride of humility; 
and enthusiasm for this ordinance will not answer for 
the lack of enthusiasm for the weightier and more costly 
things which the Pharisees passed over, while magnify¬ 
ing the minor things of the law. The observance of foot¬ 
washing will not answer for the lack of justice, judg¬ 
ment, mercy, sympathy, benevolence and faith. He who 
said that the disciples ought to wash feet, also said that 
they ought not to lay up treasures on earth, and many 
like injunctions. 

Likewise non-militarism, non-swearing and non¬ 
lawsuits are negative, and held alone are worthless to 
salvation which is by faith in Christ, which is positive 
and includes them. 

To be a non-militarist in theory while buying up 




MODERN THESES 


45 


scrap-iron in practice and selling it for shrapnel, is the 
most rank hypocrisy; and to claim conscientious scruples 
for not giving to the innocent suffering victims of the 
war, lest we cast our pearls before swine, when we are 
not casting them anywhere, reveals the depths of Satan 
in deception. Or to promptly assist our own in time of 
distress while indifferent to others is to show how for¬ 
eign is our conception of the Spirit of Christ. 

There is no gaining or maintaining virtue in wearing 
a peculiar garb; the Lord does not specify in His Word 
a straight-jacket uniform for His people. The absence 
of a necktie is not identical with the presence of grace. 
Broad hats are not synonyms for piety and generosity. 
Salvation is not by beards or bonnets. The peculiarity 
of God’s people is not in their dress, though that will be 
modest, but in that while the world lives for self, the 
child of God lives unselfishly and is zealous of good 
works. 


* * * * 

CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 
(Disciples of Christ) 

‘'Christ, our only leader; Christian, our only Name; 
Christian character, our only test of discipleship; the 
Bible, our only statement of doctrine”, is all very fitting 
if it be not limited to the corner-stone of the church, 
else the lofty sentiments are as cold as the stone upon 
which they are chiseled. A church is not Christian when 
it assumes the name Christian, but when it is Christian 
in heart and life. 




46 


MODERN THESES 


Just as an artistic label may adorn a spoiled can of 
corn, so the loftiest church names may be but a camou¬ 
flage for lives spoiled by selfishness. Chrisitanity does 
not inhere in lofty church names, however Scriptural and 
pretentious of sanctity they may be. It is rather in¬ 
herent in the manifestation of the Spirit and life of Christ 
in the believer, so that from his innermost being flow 
rivers of living water, refreshing the world. 

* * * * 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES 

There is no salvation by faith in Election, or in the 
Decrees; or by the Final Perseverance of the Saints. 
Salvation is contingent upon faith in the Divine Elec¬ 
tor; it is thru trust in Him who Decrees; and it is by 
confidence in the ONE who enables the saints to perse¬ 
vere. Neither is there salvation by appearing before a 
Presbytery of unconverted men—“In Zion everyone 
appeareth before the Lord.” 

* * * * 

METHODIST CHURCHES 

The original definition of a Methodist was: “One 
who lived according to the method laid down in the 
Bible.” 

Much of the present Methodism, with its denial of 
the plenary inspiration of the Bible, with its conformity 
to the world, with its educational program of Destruc¬ 
tive (so-called ‘Higher’) Criticism; with its form of god¬ 
liness, rather than the power, with its multitudinous 




MODERN THESES 


47 


socialized activities as substitutes for her original spir¬ 
itual fervor and fire, out from which every worth-while 
activity of the kingdom of heaven flowed; and with her 
substitution of Chautauquas for Camp Meetings, is as far 
from original Methodism as day is from night. 

* * * * 

THE SALVATION ARMY 

The Salvation Army was, originally, what its name 
signifies — an army of consecrated, Spirit-baptized 
workers for the salvation and sanctification of souls, pri¬ 
marily, and secondarily, for the care of the body, with 
the purpose in view of its redemption. 

The present Salvation Army is too often an array of 
Social Service workers, more efficient, often, in minister¬ 
ing to the bodies of men, than Spirit-anointed to min¬ 
ister to their souls; and they are largely financially de¬ 
pendent upon the enemies of Christ, who violate, in their 
money-getting, the benevolence of Christ, for the bud¬ 
get of their socialized activities. Originally they were 
greatly despised and persecuted; now they are feted, 
banqueted, limousined and entertained in exclusive hotels 
in royal style. 


* * * * 

HOLINESS CHURCHES AND MOVEMENT 

The leaders of the Holiness Churches and Move¬ 
ments have cried loudly for the reformation of all other 
churches, but the amazing thing is that they do not seem 
to see their own deep need of Reformation—as much 




48 


MODERN THESES 


deeper as their claim to superior piety and light, for— 
“Of him that hath much shall much be required.” 

When those who arrogate to themselves the dis¬ 
tinction of being the real children of God, fail to bring 
forth the fruit of the kingdom of God, the Lord rejects 
them and gives the kingdom to others who will produce 
the fruit thereof. 


* * * * 

BAPTIST CHURCHES 

“The objective of the baptism of John the Baptist 
was not the mode of its administration, nor was there 
reliance in the efficacy of the water, but the great objec¬ 
tive and burden of John’s message was—“unto repen¬ 
tance.” This includes the knowledge of sin, or convic- 
tion, godly sorrow for sin, confession of sin, separation 
from sin, reparation for sin where possible, a change 
from selfishness to benevolence, which imparted the 
extra coat and food to him that had none, a cessation of 
all exaction and extortion, and a change of Masters— 
from Satan and Self, to Christ, and gave light on, and 
aspiration for the greater baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
which should be administered by the greater One who 
should come after John. 

Too often water immersion results only in making the 
dry sinner, wet. 




MODERN THESES 


49 


Concisely Stated, Diversified, Epigrammatic 
Theses 

CHAPTER III 

“It is growing clearer that many doctrines of men 
are not lasting; only the Word of God is eternal. ,, 

* * * * 

“The world will allow the mere statement of any 
doctrine, provided no attempt be made to put it into 
practice. It is only when faith begins to produce works 
that the Christian is confronted with bitter opposition.” 

* * * * 

When someone crosses our path with the actual 
possession of the religious goods we claim, theoretically, 
to have, there is a stir. 

* * * * 

Slavish attachment to the old traditions prior to the 
Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, had destroyed 
freedom of thought, and a similar attachment to our new 
traditions, subsequent to the Reformation, has had a 
similar effect. 

* * * * 

Clear providences of God may lead an individual, or 
a company of individuals, to change their church rela¬ 
tions, but be it ever remembered that transferred people 
with new religious labels are not always transformed 
people. The new label does not break the old bondage; 
another place will not equal Jesus’ place; the new drill¬ 
ing ground and the new marching rules will not answer 
for the new life in Christ Jesus l 




50 


MODERN THESES 


* * * * 

“The test of any doctrine is whether it can be trans¬ 
lated into Life; whether it makes any difference with 
the people who accept it.” The doctrine expressed in all 
creeds must stand or fall by this test—VERIFICA¬ 
TION! 

* * * * 

“It is one thing to believe oneself orthodox and 
quite another to have that orthodoxy so definitely de¬ 
fined as to be compelled, whether or no, to look it 
squarely in the face and own or disown it.” 

* * * * 

“We must not content ourselves with the notions 
that people have about God, for they are often wide of 
the mark, but we must diligently seek to know what He 
has disclosed regarding Himself. We want to come to 
the very fountain—the revelation which the Lord has 
given of Himself in His Word.” 

* * * * 

What we stand for so earnestly, the men of the Six¬ 
teenth Century died to rdbuke as false—loyalty to the 
Church, for example, as a substitute for loyalty to Christ; 
reception into the organization in place of receiving 
Christ. This is the peril of all church organizations, 
great and small, Roman, Protestant and Independent, 
intervening themselves between the soul and Christ as 
mediators, when there is only One Mediator between 
God and man, the Man Christ Jesus! 

* * * * 

“Christianity consists not in dead doctrines and 




MODERN THESES 


51 


pompous ceremonies, but in a Person, in a living faith 
and a holy life.” 

* * * * 

To have favor with God we need not always fit into 

the theological moulds of men. 

* * * * 

The Sermon on the Mount is more vital than all 
the human deductions from it. 

* * * * 

Knowledge of prophecy is not a condition of salva¬ 
tion; (although it is “a more sure word of prophecy, to 
which we do well to take heed”) yet the imminency of 
much of its most startling fulfillment may be a strong 
incentive to seek salvation and sanctification. 

* * * * 

There is no saving grace by intellectual belief in, 
and advocacy of the so-called fundamenal doctrines of 
the Bible. Salvation is not by orthodoxy or right 
opinion. Merely to defend the Bible’s fundamental doc¬ 
trines, or what is called battling for the Bible against the 
encroachments of destructive criticism, evolution, new 
theology, etc., is not the same as preaching the Gospel 
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. It is the 
latter course that brings the fire of persecution and not 
the former. 

* * * * 

Satan is willing that we defend the Bible ever so 
learnedly and eloquently, but he roars when it is so 
preached that individuals are transformed by its power 
from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to 




52 


MODERN THESES 


God. Multitudes who sit entranced under its eloquent 
defence, will turn away from it with burning indigna¬ 
tion when the Word of God is preached in the penetra¬ 
tive power of the Spirit. 

* * * * 

It is no more essential to salvation to make a pil¬ 
grimage to a modern Camp-Meeting than to Ancient 
Rome; albeit God does specially manifest His saving 
power in many of them. 

* * * * 

Right thinking, in New Thought, apart from right 
being, thru the Spirit’s supernatural transforming power, 
is a species of attempted salvation by works (the work 
of concentration in thinking) and therefore worthless. 

* * * * 

Right natural generation in Eugenics, does not elim¬ 
inate the necessity of regeneration, effected by the birth 
of the Spirit. 

* * * * 

The denial of sin in Christian Science is not the 
same as deliverance from it thru faith in the blood of 
Christ, without which shedding there is no remission of 
sin. 

* * * * 

Sleeping with a loaded revolver under our pillows is 
not identical with the Psalmist’s trust in Jehovah—‘T 
will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, God, 
only makest me to dwell in safety.” And readiness to 
shoot the prowler after our goods is not the same as 
taking joyfully the spoiling of our goods; and prepara- 




MODERN THESES 


53 


tion to take life in a defending of life or gold, is not the 
same as placing our times in His hands, and valuing a 
man’s life as more precious than gold. 

* * * * 

The Tree of Knowledge is not synonymous with 
The Tree of Life. Of one Jehovah said that his wisdom 
and knowledge had perverted him; and of another that 
his deceived heart had led him astray. 

* * * * 

Atmospheres created by the psychology of the open¬ 
ing song service are in no sense essential to the power 
and effectiveness of the jWord of God, which stands on 
its own merit. The song service may be purely soul- 
ish; the Word of God is Spirit and Life. 

* * * * 

A man’s attitude to an organized church and its 
activities, by no means is synonymous with his standing 
with God, either if without or within its pale. Luther 
said if a man would be saved he must hunt the church, 
by which he did not mean the organization, but the 
organism, the true, living, Church, the company of faith¬ 
ful brethren in whom dwells the living faith. Hence, 
Christian laymen are not obligated of God to continue 
tribute to men or systems that have lost the heavenly 
vision, only as they may be led of God to endure for the 
elects’ sake, or to sustain those to whom God shall grant 
repentance. 

* * * * 

No tribunal on earth has the right to call a man on 
the carpet or to task for preaching the pure Word of God 
in the power and demonstration of the Spirit. 




54 


MODERN THESES 


* * * * 

We need to contend for liberty from all modern 
assumptions of man to infallibility! 

* * * * 

The truth of God has always won its most striking 
victories amid the most bitter antagonism and oppo¬ 
sition—progress by antagonism ! 

* * * * 

Men need not so much the call to “life service” as 
they need the fitness for it! The fitness includes the 
call; the call does not include the fitness—“Tarry, till 
ye be endued with power”, is sadly needed as an admoni¬ 
tion today. The Divine Guiding Hand is more essential 
to successful life service than twenty guiding principles 
to it, such as maintaining loyalty, constant study, firm 
decision, follow duty, measure your ability by the 
demand of the field, survey possible spheres of life serv¬ 
ice, discover your talents, counsel, secure highest educa¬ 
tion, and finally, careful deliberation in the supreme de¬ 
cision, all of which circumlocution is far from Divine 
Guidance “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and HE 
shall direct thy paths.” “HE will guide you into all 
truth.” 

* * * * 

God does not require our reverence for institutions 
from which His glory has departed, nor our tribute to 
leaders who have lost their heavenly vision. The child of 
God is not under obligation to disburse his benevolence 
in channels which will not yield real fruit unto God. When 
the moral obligation assumed in acceptance of means 
sacred to God, ceases, he must cast about him for a more 




MODERN THESES 


55 


profitable sphere of investment, and this applied to ail 
churches alike, great and small, so that it becomes an 
individual matter with the God-anointed, individual 
bearer of fruit, to discriminate between the support of 
the ecclesiastical machinery and the servant of God; the 
activities of the organization, and the work of the true 
Church. 

Finney tells of a company of earnest Christians in 
England who were disappointed in their pastor, the work 
of God not moving forward under his ministry and no 
souls being saved. They waited on him and asked him 
for a reason for the fruitlessness. Assuming great in¬ 
dignation, he replied that he was not a God that he could 
convert souls. And they replied that whether he was a 
God or no, souls must be won, and they dismissed him 
and a man called of God was sent to them, under whom 
the work of soul-saving moved forward. Under vigor¬ 
ous procedure like this, many of our modern preachers 
would tarry for a baptism of power or hunt other work. 

* * * * 

God deliver us from the cowardice of Lefevre who 
entered the threshold of the Reformation Era, felt its 
power and call, but when possible martyrdom loomed up 
before him, turned his back upon the heavenly vision, 
saving his life but dying in great remorse. Save us from 
the time-serving Erasmus who tried to please both the 
Reform and the Roman parties, but who died despised 
and rejected by both! 

* * * * 

“Best of all God is with us!” said dying Wesley. 
To place those words on the corner stone of a beautiful 




56 


MODERN THESES 


white granite church is not the same as having the con¬ 
scious manifested presence of God in the midst, which 
caused Wesley to speak them! To have the words with¬ 
out their content is to imitate the Pharisees in garnish¬ 
ing the sepulchres of the righteous while rejecting that 
which made them great. 

* * * * 

David, the man of blood, was not permitted to build 
the temple of the Lord in Old Testament times. The 
man of blood cannot build the spiritual temple of the 
Lord unless he repent, the spirit of war and the spirit 
of Christ being antagonistic. The weapons of our war¬ 
fare are not carnal, but mighty thru the Spirit, and the 
wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. 

* * * * 

Christian fellowship is essential as we are com¬ 
manded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves to¬ 
gether as the manner of some is, but we should not seek 
to bind men to a religious society, alliance, movement, 
or doctrine, but to Christ. “O, Israel, in ME IS THINE 
HELP”, wrote the prophet, and the apostles commended 
their converts to the Lord on Whom they believed! 

* * * * 

Cowardice is an act of treachery to Christ! God 
cannot have his work manifested by cowards. Men of 
God alone can conduct a work of God! A mild, concil¬ 
iatory spirit on lesser points, and a firm unyielding spirit 
in essential matter of faith, is needed. 

* * * * 

The history of all great revivals shows that their 




MODERN THESES 


57 


chief human instruments never received great monetary 
compensation. Finney, the great evangelist (having as 
many as five hundred thousand converts in one year, 
with a record of eighty-five percent stability) never 
received over six hundred dollars annually, and this was 
not raised in the meetings but given by a friend. The 
sense of the awful presence of God was so deep in his 
meetings that money was forgotten. Once Finney was 
in such straightened circumstances that he was com¬ 
pelled to sell his cow in order to live. What an amazing 
contrast is this with the professional, sensational, soft- 
pedal, surface revivals of our day and the enormous re¬ 
muneration their manipulators get from their dupes. 
The purer the work of God the less is apt to be its 
monetary reward! There were no collections in the 
Welsh Revival!! 

* * * * 

Can our present effete Christianity be any kin to the 
martyr church with its indomitable constancy and calm 
witnessing for Christ, even unto blood and death? Their 
prisons were illumined by Christ’s presence until they 
shone like palaces; we have palaces in which to worship, 
yet often shun them as though they were foul dungeons, 
even though today the profession of Christianity is popu¬ 
lar. With them it was regarded as criminal, yet were 
they ever ready to die for Christ. When led to Rome in 
chains as captives, they were more than conquerors in 
Christ, marching in triumphal procession to CORONA¬ 
TION rather than to death! How much martyr blood 
could wc find for Christ today? Things which we hold, 
sentimentally, as valuable to our profession of Chris¬ 
tianity, the Reformation martyrs died to rebuke as false! 




58 


MODERN THESES 


* * * * 

A startling test of the source of a man’s commission 
to preach, is in the degree of his acceptance or rejection 
by the world, or in his popularity with, or ignoring by, 
a formal church. Referring primarily to the Anti-Christ, 
and the Jews acceptance of him, the Word says—“If 
one comes in his own name him ye will receive: I am 
come in my Father’s name and ye receive me not.” But 
how true of the attitude toward false leaders today! 

* * * * 

Pageantry is a poor substitute for piety; and march¬ 
ing in religious, Sunday School or Revival parades, is 
not identical with walking circumspectly with God. 

* * * * 

We may be so busy with church activities that we 
fail to do the work of the Master. The command is 
always to abound in the work of the Lord rather than 
the work of the church when its work is not identical 
with His work. There is no more saving merit in a 
modern church social program than in a festival of the 
Dark Ages; pure social life is not objected to when 
accompanied by deep spiritual life, but the substitution 
of the social for the spiritual. 

* * * * 

We recognize that there are bodies of people in 
whom the power of God dwells more richly than in 
others, but this very strength may become a source of 
weakness and often the means of disintegration. 

Zwingle’s strength was the source of his downfall—his 
power of leadership led him to turn the people, against 
their consciences and the Word of God, to carnal con- 





MODERN THESES 


59 


flict which, when the infatuation wore off after Zwingle’s 
humiliating death, the Spirit of God convinced them of 
as sin and led them to deep contrition. 

* * * * 

To be like quick-silver in our ability to fit into every 
mould of public opinion and sentiment; to be men- 
pleasers, is far from Paul’s ambition to be well pleasing 
to Him. 

* * * * 

Let us not protest with Erasmus that we will ever 
cling to the Roman See, right or wrong, or to any of the 
Protestant Sees, but ever cling to Jesus Christ. 

* * * * 

Young Men’s Christian Associations may be as cor¬ 
rupt as the ancient monasteries and the facts are with us 
that they are as corrupt often as the law will allow— 
drunken inmates, gambling, card-playing, crap-shooting 
booze, drinking, cigarette smoking, cursing, swearing 
and worse. The imperative need is a general house¬ 
cleaning in all religious institutions. 

* * * * 

In Christ there is perfect liberty from bondage to 
what the Hebrew calls the Haggadah, or the traditional 
or legendary—the cliche or stereotyped form of expres¬ 
sion. He gives us not weasel-words out of which the 
meaning and power have been sapped, but living words 
which are “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any 
two-edged sword.” 

* * * * 

The increase of members in the modern church is 
not equivalent to the early increase of faith. 





60 


MODERN THESES 


* * * * 

In proportion as the Spirit withdrew from the primi¬ 
tive churches, they put in His place, forms, shows and 
ceremonies. What substitutes do we find today in Pro¬ 
testantism? Pageantry, Post-Millennial Shows, Tab¬ 
leaux, Religious Parades, Revival Parades, Sunday- 
School parades, Musical Programs, Moving Pictures, 
Gymnasiums, Swimming Pools, Pool, Billiards and the 
Bowling Alley, and endless socials and banquets—all the 
poorest caricatures of the life which is in Christ Jesus! 

* * * * 

With fanaticism, formalism, Phariseeism, and the 
glad hand-shake on every side, it is hard to choose. The 
panacea for all the sad confusion of the hour is JESUS 
CHRIST! ENTHRONED WITHIN!! 

* * * * 

The most prominent characteristics of the early 
Christians were resistance of Satan and separation from 
the world. They were “in the world but not of it.” 
Bastard Christendom's most dominant note is conform¬ 
ity. The old-time pastor was apart from the world; the 
modern pastor must be adaptable. It has gone even 
further than that, as illustrated in the following story 
of the man who said to his wife when she informed him 
that the minister was coming for dinner—“Well, that 
means that I must brush up on my best ‘peppy' stories 
or he will think I'm not a regular fellow." 

A Methodist Presiding Elder in Iowa said that nine- 
tenths of the preachers had their ears to the ground lis¬ 
tening in on public sentiment and then, instead of 




MODERN THESES 


61 


preaching the Gospel of the grace of God, they pleased 
public opinion. 

* * * * 

We revere the fathers, reformers and confessors and 
martyrs, and the more recent leaders, as Wesley, but we 
object to hearing more of what they said about the Word 
of God than what the Lord Jesus says, for as Kempis 
said, ‘‘His words outweigh in authority and power all the 
words of all holy men.” 

* * * * 

The Scriptures throw a flood of light on Mrs. Eddy’s 
so-called ‘Key to the Scriptures’. The Scriptures are 
not to be interpreted by the key but they do prove the 
Key (?) to be false. “Thy Word is Truth” and will 
quickly reveal the lie. The Word illumines and as the 
old lady put it, “makes even the Commentaries plain.” 

* * * * 

“Tradition, ancient and modern, embodies the vaga¬ 
ries of the wayward mind of man; the Bible, and the 
Bible only, contains and is the Word (and Mind) of 
God.” 

* * * * 

External Christianity, under ancient and modern 
Constantines, who would unite what God has separated, 
i. e. church and state, hides the real Gospel of God from 
men who profess to believe in it. 

* * * * 

In the early days of departure from the simplicity 
of the Gospel under-bishops of large cities were care¬ 
fully instructed to inculcate implicit obedience to the 




62 


MODERN THESES 


bishop instead of emphasizing the necessity of obedience 
to the true Bishop of the soul. That is also the prac¬ 
tice of our day. To get anywhere it is said that you are 
to obey those having the rule over you. But this is true 
only ‘‘in the Lord.” He puts down one and sets up 
another. When a modern bishop compels a preacher, 
on the Conference floor, to violate his conscience and 
stifle truth and deny God-given convictions, wherein, in 
the exercise of authority, is he less despotic than the 
tyrants the Reformers unseated from lordship over the 
Church? Or the preacher, in submitting, to the grov¬ 
elling, cowardly devotee of a false system? 

* * * * 

The soul is not saved nor advanced in the spiritual 
life by the observance of a day, as in Adventism; neither 
is there any saving merit in the abstinence from meats 
and from marriage, which God created to be received 
with thanksgiving by those who know the truth. 




MODERN THESES 


63 


Paragraphical Theses 

CHAPTER IV 

To require men to do anything else as a condition 
of salvation except to receive with meekness the 
engrafted Word which is able to save the soul, is to 
reflect on the efficacy of the Gospel. 

* * * * 

Taking a stand for Christ, holding up the hand for 
prayer, going forward and bowing at a mourners’ bench 
or altar, repairing to an inquiry room, card-signing, 
assenting to the evangelists’ or personal workers’ syllo¬ 
gism, choosing the pastor and joining the church of one’s 
choice, memorizing the catechism, going thru the pro¬ 
cess of confirmation, or Decision Day, studying the com¬ 
mandments, hitting the saw-dust trail, shaking the evan¬ 
gelist’s hand, being baptized in a certain mode, appear¬ 
ing before the Presbytery, joining the probationers’ 
class, are in no sense essential to salvation. Repentance 
towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ only, 
are essential, though in some instances, the mentioned 
means have been instrumental in leading souls to Christ, 
yet are they unnecessary circumlocutions to salvation. 
The Lord requires submission, surrender, obedience, re¬ 
pentance and faith. “Now is the day of salvation”. He 
who believes is immediately forgiven, whereas many of 
the false methods necessitate some time for their accom¬ 
plishment. 

* * * * 

Card enrollment and the writing down of one’s name 
in heaven are not identical; the saw-dust trail and the 




64 


MODERN THESES 


glory trail are not always the same; a new name is not 
always written down in glory when it is entered on the 
church record. How pathetic is all this when we realize 
that “Whosoever was not found written in the Book of 
Life was cast into the lake of fire.” 

* * * * 

Healing the bodies of disease and the soul of sel¬ 
fishness, are not always synchronous; “mere miracles 
which only cure the flesh are not enough to stand the 
final test.” The writer was once made most unwelcome 
(he was put out) in a home where the body’s healing 
was the chief topic, for speaking of benevolence also as a 
fruit of rightness with God; an experience in bodily 
healing is a poor substitute for righteousness in all 
realms of life. 

* * * * 

More is needed than a mental culture which ignores 
the heart. More is needed than persuasive, eloquent 
preaching; eloquence cannot imitate the unction of the 
Spirit; human pathos is a poor substitute for Divine 
unction; so-called applied Christianity in effective phil¬ 
anthropy will not touch the deep heart need; neither will 
a genius for organization supply the place of the need 
of life in Christ Jesus. 

* * * * 

“At the outset, the early Church was not even recog¬ 
nized as a definite society; outsiders noted those who 
belonged to Christ merely because they lived a certain 
way which differed from the custom of the times; with 
us, worship is public and conduct is sometimes private; 
with them it was the other way around—conduct was 




MODERN THESES 


65 


apparent and worship was concealed behind closed 
doors.” The early church was not a legally incorporated 
body—their records were in heaven; their great secret 
needs to be ours—applied Personality. Fellowship with 
God and with His Son thru the Spirit! All else sec¬ 
ondary. 

* * * * 

Reverence for special leaders was unknown in the 
early church. No leader was called “The Big Chief” or 
“The King of Missions”. “There were no genufluctions 
or bowing the knee to the great. The creeds were as 
yet unwritten save in the heart; they had no church 
parades, pageantry or publicity; the catechism was not 
thought of by them as an essential to salvation—it came 
later. They had no prayer-books, only prayer; no 
theories of power, just power.” 

* * * * 

Unless we repent and turn to Christ, coming gener¬ 
ations, if the Lord tarry, will have to pass much of our 
history over to get a picture of pure Christianity. 

A modern church, filled only with socialized acti¬ 
vities is as destructive of pure Christianity as the 
churches filled with the abuses of the Dark Ages. The 
church of Christ is not a social club—bowling alleys, 
pool and billiard tables, swimming pools and gymna¬ 
siums are not mentioned among the Bible elements of 
power from on high. A misisonary, home on furlough, 
broke down in tears as she entered a large city church 
where she was to speak and saw, near the pulpit, a case 
filled with silver cups, won by various church and Sun¬ 
day School “teams”. “Oh,” she said, to her sister who 




66 


MODERN THESES 


accompanied her, “you spend your money to send us to 
the foreign fields to ask the natives to throw away their 
idols, and we come home to find them installed, and 
proudly displayed, in your church auditoriums.” 

Sacred concerts are in no adequate sense a substi¬ 
tute for the preaching of the Gospel with the Holy Ghost 
sent down from heaven, for it is not by music that men 
are born again but by the Word of God which liveth and 
abideth forever. That which is secondary should not be 
made paramount to the Gospel. 

* * * * 

The Gospel’s call is not primarily to life service or 
to readiness for “any work in any world”; it is to repen¬ 
tance and holiness or fitness for it. Unsanctified men 
will more readily respond to a call to dedication for 
work, than to fitness for the work, because the one min¬ 
isters to their pride and the other calls for its crucifixion. 
Hence our need is not so much for twenty guiding prin¬ 
ciples to life service as much as it is complete surrender 
to the One Guiding Hand. The sanctifying baptism 
with the Holy Spirit is more essential to success in 
Christian service than graduation from the Seminary 
without the Holy Spirit. Yet reverent scholarship 
aflame with the Holy Spirit’s anointing, makes a com¬ 
bination of untold potentialities for good. 

* * * * 

Responding to the influence of mob psychology in 
Hippodrome Revivals, human mesmerism, hypnotism 
and personal magnetism, aided by the entrancing spell 
of embellished music, is not identical with submission to 
the Holy Spirit’s voice; the one exalts the creature, the 







MODERN THESES 


67 


other the Creator. The mail of fine physique and excep¬ 
tional mental endowments is not always the Lord’s 
choice to herald the Gospel, since the sum total of all the 
activities of the flesh is nothing. God often chooses the 
weak and foolish things to confound the mighty, that no 
flesh should glory in his sight. 

* * * * 

Persecution is more indicative of rightness with 
God than popularity with men; persecution for right¬ 
eousness sake and not because of fanaticism and idiosyn¬ 
crasies. Persecution in the days of the Inquisition was 
dressed in red and operated in the open at the stake; 
today it wears a robe of self-righteousness, is not so vio¬ 
lent and operates in secret. The man of God with a 
burning message is as unwelcome in many of our) present- 
day churches as John Wesley was in his father’s church. 
Tombstones will give him a warmer welcome than for¬ 
mal ecclesiastics. If he preaches his God-given convic¬ 
tions he will soon have a revival of pure religion or a 
new field of labor. 


* * * * 

It is still true as Emerson says, in church organi¬ 
zations as well as in society, that whoever would play 
the man must be a non-conformist, as both are a con¬ 
spiracy against the manhood and liberty of their devo¬ 
tees. To know the sect a man belongs to is to be able 
to apprehend his line of argument; he is bound hand and 
foot to defend his system and may not talk in original 
language. The Master, however, cannot have His work 
demonstrated by the cowardly. 




68 


MODERN THESES 


* * * * 

There is no more salvation inherent in any Protes¬ 
tant Church organization than there was in the ancient 
Papal system; God does not dwell in systems or temples 
made with men’s hands, but in hearts. He is represented 
in the Laodicean Church as outside, knocking at the door 
of individual hearts, saying, “If any man hear my voice 
and open the door I will come in to him and sup with 
him.” 

* * * * 

Ancient or modern popes, Catholic or Protestant, 
(for there may be the spirit of popery where no title of 
Pope is given) are powerless to remit sin. The Protest¬ 
ant Church, without Christ, is as poor a substitute for 
Christ, as was the church of the Dark Ages. 

* * * * 

Salvation is not by syllogism, however unanswer¬ 
ably logical; it is not even by naked faith, but by saving 
faith, with the conscious objective: “Receiving the end 
of your faith even the salvation of your souls.” 

* * * * 

The least need of the modern church is money; her 
greatest need is the kingdom of heaven in the heart. The 
Fundamentalists say—“Both men and money are offer¬ 
ing themselves to carry on the fight against modernism 
in the church and rationalism in the schools.” But “men 
and money” is not enough, since “the battle is not ours, 
but the Lord’s.” Again, “Fundamentalists are as thor¬ 
oughly committed to the denominational program as any 
other. Let us, as Christians, rather, “Commit our way 
unto the Lord, trust also in him and he will bring it to 




MODERN THESES 


69 


pass.” And yet again the Fundamentalists say, “It can¬ 
not be too strongly emphasized that it is our business as 
loyal supporters of the Word of God to hold on to the 
machinery of the truth.” There should be no machin¬ 
ery in Truth. Truth is a Person, for Jesus Christ said— 
“I am the Way, the Truth—.” Let us rather hold to 
Him. Again they say—“The money which founded our 
schools and established our churches was given by loyal 
believers.” We are told in the New Testament that “the 
Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved” 
and upon Peter’s confession of Him as the Christ, He 
uttered those words which we do well to remember in 
these days of apostacy—“On this Rock (Christ Jesus) I 
will build my church.” 

* * * * 

Efficiency in the superintendency of the machinery 
of the institutionalized church, and the Upper Room 
equipment for service, are at antipodes. Said a prominent 
pastor of an Institutional Church which during his seven 
years’ incumbency spent seventeen hundred thousand 
dollars—“I am through; I have been no more than a 
superintendent of machinery—I am going back to the 
Upper Room.” 

* * * * 

The Lord has always had an elect in the various 
ecclesiastical organizations down thru history; in Israel 
they were found in the synagogue and temple of Christ’s 
time; in the Church of the Dark Ages, in the Roman 
Church after the Reformation; in the Episcopal or Angli¬ 
can Church of Wesley’s day; and in the various church 
organizations (and without) in our day, can be found 




70 


MODERN THESES 


those whom God has reserved, who have not bowed the 
knee to Baal. The true man of God rejoices, as did his 
Master, in faith and character, wherever it is found; and 
though he wars in the flesh he does not war after the 
flesh, and though he is in the world he is not of the 
world, he keeps himself unspotted from the world and 
from that which is false in the Church organization, cry¬ 
ing aloud against sin everywhere, within and without. 

* * * * 

It is suggested that in the concern of God and our 
souls, ecclesiastical and church governors, have no con¬ 
trol over us, since every man must give account of him¬ 
self to God. He must, through conscience, the Word and 
Spirit of God, arrive at the will of God, and value all 
churches and religious leaders only as they help him 
arrive at this result. Thus all good in men raised up for 
leadership in the Name of Jehovah, is of God, and the 
strongest men are but God’s weakest instruments; they 
are not the originators or creators of their respective 
epochs; the Word of God does not originate with them 
any more than it does with others—it came only unto 
them. The excellency of the power is of God that God, 
thru Christ Jesus, in all things may be glorified. 

* * * * 

How suggestively appropriate to the church which 
Wesley founded are his words of reproof on the perver¬ 
sion of the office of Bishop in the English Anglican 
Church, which made it the head of the Christian minis¬ 
try, whereas in the Apostolic Church it certainly was a 
limited and inferior office appointed by the apostles and 





MODERN THESES 


71 


evangelists for the care of a particular church flock, 
only while they continued to minister to them. 

* * * * 

CAMOUFLAGED BONDAGE 

Napoleon was as despotic as the kings he unseated 
—an imperialistic democrat! 

* * * * 

(Wesley’s keen observation of the actual conditions 
(rather than professed) of the Dissenters from the 
Church of England, led him to say that he was sure that 
the Church of England, with all her blemishes, was as 
near, or nearer right with the Scriptural plan, than any 
other Church in Europe. Could not in all fairness, this 
be said of many of the Churches of our time, from which 
dissenters separate? 

* * * * 

A man who has since learned better, said that his 
church was the most spiritual church in a radius of one 
hundred miles! But, comparing ourselves among our¬ 
selves is not wise, Paul wrote. If we insist on compari ¬ 
son let us measure ourselves by the Standard, Christ, by 
whom God will judge the world, and then let us hunt 
some secluded spot and weep out our sorrow at our un¬ 
likeness to the Pattern. “Not he who commendeth him¬ 
self is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.” 

* * * * 

One great danger is in the change of the form and 
label of our bondage without deliverance from the fact 
of it. Early in the days of the Lutheran Reformation, 




72 


MODERN THESES 


those of keen spiritual discernment saw the potentiality 
of a new pope in Luther and the danger that Lutheran¬ 
ism might lie as hard upon them as had Romanism. A 
Lutheran preacher told the writer what he had previously 
and frequently observed, that modern Lutheranism was 
rapidly reverting to the type it had originally rebuked— 
justification by works rather than jusification by faith, 
as pure Lutheranism had taught. 

* * * * 

Several Free Methodist girls testified to the writer 
that they were in as horrible bondage to that church and 
its form as a Catholic was to the priest and the system 
he represented. Bondage is bondage, and there is little 
difference whether one be bound by a Roman, Protest¬ 
ant, Holiness, Alliance or Pentecostal church. One has 
as much right as the other to lord it over men’s con¬ 
sciences. Christ makes men free from all and while they 
may worship with one, they love all and are equally 
ready to serve one or the other, but they are bound by 
none, owned by none, worship none. “ONE IS YOUR 
MASTER EVEN CHRIST.” 

* * * * 

A Lutheran preacher was lamenting to the writer 
how sad it was that good, conscientious men and women 
of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches had 
placed their consecrated money to endow the educational 
institutions of these churches and that now many of 
them were hotbeds of destructive criticism, evolution 
and infidelity. That is indeed deplorable and reprehen¬ 
sible, when heterodoxy supplants orthodoxy. He further 
advised us that if preachers in his church were hetero- 




MODERN THESES 


73 


dox, they would promptly be ejected from the synod 
without ceremony. We would suggest that doctrinally 
he might be, as he supposed, perfectly orthodox and yet 
dead in his orthodoxy. Indeed this seems to be the con¬ 
dition of much of our present day Protestantism. Even 
correct truth may be held down in unrighteousness and 
in powerlessness as a dead intellectualism, after all the 
power to transform lives has departed from it. In other 
words, to quote Professor Shaw, “We may be as spirit¬ 
ually dead (in the light) while holding correct intellec¬ 
tual views of truth as others are dead in the dark of 
wrong views.” The death touch may be on our ortho¬ 
doxy. 

* * * * 

Modern density as to spiritual propriety and fitness 
is often as great as it was in the Dark Ages. A Presby¬ 
terian young man gambled and won money, then gave it 
to the church and thought it was thus hallowed. 

* * * * 

A VISION OF JESUS AND ITS EFFECT 

In some quarters we hear much about searching out 
sin. That is the Spirit’s work and not ours. He reveals 
Jesus Christ to us and testifies of Him. There is no sin 
in the catalog that will not come to light when we get 
a clear vision of Himself. Take the case of Peter who 
had denied his Lord twice with oaths—when he saw 
Jesus, he jumped into the sea, girting his fisher’s coat 
about him and crying for the Lord to depart from him 
because he was a sinful man. 

The vision of Jesus has the same convictive effect 




74 


MODERN THESES 


on uncleanliness. The woman at Simon’s house silently 
wept over her guilt at His feet. The sight of His spot¬ 
less purity broke her heart. He said no word to her 
about adultery. A power went out from Jesus which, 
when men and women looked on Him, made them see 
all their guilt. 

Again take the case of the woman at the well, guilty 
of polyandry—plural husbands—“Come see a man which 
told me all things that ever I did.” He told her only one 
thing, but when she saw Him she saw all her sin. 

Isaiah, before his vision of the Lord Jesus, had 
visions of the needs and diseases of others, but when 
he sees face to face, Him who is fairer than the sons of 
men, he discovers his own hidden heart corruption and 
cries—“Woe is me for I am undone—I am a man of 
unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of un¬ 
clean lips.” 

In the case of demon possession; when the man of 
Gedara saw Him, he was released and restored to his 
right mind. At the sight of Him, seven devils went out 
of Mary Magdalene. 

Take conviction and general revival power: His 
name was preached in Samaria, and unclean spirits came 
out of many that were possessed by them, and there was 
great joy in that city. 

Paul had been a blasphemer and injurious, a per¬ 
secutor of the saints and had consented to the murder 
of Stephen, but God vouchsafed to him on the Damascus 
Road, a vision of His Son, the Bright and Morning Star, 
with hair as fine wool and eyes as a flame of fire, feet 
like brass, and a countenance like lightning, a voice as 
the sound of many waters. Paul looked on His face, 





MODERN THESES 


75 


bright as the sun, heard his voice, and his heart broke 
and immediately he volunteers for service. The Lord 
gave him no credit, nor does he ask it, for all his former 
Pharisaical works, his tithe paying, fasting groaning, 
praying, or alms-giving. Paul would have died in his 
religious blindness but for the sight of Jesus. But Paul’s 
type of conversion is abiding. He says, “I was not dis¬ 
obedient to the heavenly vision.” He never got away 
from it. He would have been poor material for a mod¬ 
ern “Book of Numbers”—type of evangelist, out of 
which to build a reputation. He did not have to hunt a 
mourners’ bench after getting one look at Jesus—there 
was all needed motive power in the Vision of Christ to 
carry him without swerving to the head-man’s block. 
Let us not forget this type of heavenly-vision conver¬ 
sion when deploring the instability of modern sham con¬ 
versions. 

John said—“Whosoever seeth Him sinneth not.” 
The vision of Jesus ends the practice of sin, whether it 
be that of profiteering, avarice, extortion, spiritual pride, 
or any other sin. Zaccheus saw Jesus coming down the 
road and he felt his hard heart melt within him and his 
covetousness left him, resulting in four-fold restitution 
and fifty percent division with the poor. 







/ 











« 
























MODERN THESES 


77 


Dangerous Shoals 

CHAPTER V 

Wesley, after speaking of what the established 
church condemned as irregularities, the calling of sin¬ 
ners to repentance in all cases, extemporaneous prayer 
and uniting in a religious society, disclaimed being a 
dissenter, whom the law defined as one who renounced 
the service of the church. He said, “We do not, we dare 
not, separate from it. We are not seceders, nor do we 
bear any resemblance to them. We must set out on 
quite opposite principles. The Seceders, Nonconform¬ 
ists, Independents and Come-Outers laid the very foun¬ 
dation of their work in judging and condemning others. 
We (Methodists take note, particularly those who claim 
to be purely Wesleyan) laid the foundation of our work 
in judging and condemning ourselves. See Corinthians 
11:31. They (the Separatists) begin everywhere by 
showing their hearers how fallen the church and the 
ministers are. We begin everywhere by showing our 
hearers how fallen they are themselves.” 

Thus he avoided the spirit so prevalent in indepen¬ 
dent churches of our day—that salvation is a science 
committed to them, as was the assumption of the priests 
of the Hierarchy—each church a little charmed circle 
with a little pass-word like the lodges, which, unless you 
have down to the precision of parrot-repetition thru 
initiation into the mysteries of the new and wonderful 
sect, you cannot get in and you must ever be regarded 
as of the uninitiated. Exclusiveness is the order. We 
must use our preachers and workers and zealously 




78 


MODERN THESES 


guard our church for ourselves and our children and 
our descendants and adherents and their descendants. 
We must keep out all doctrines foreign to our estab¬ 
lished and rigid doctrines and we must censor all others 
who fail to conform to our immovable creeds which 
we have deducted from the Bible. We must not let 
them into our pulpits lest they make a stir in the 
established order and quicken our people to do some 
original investigating. Oh, Popery, in the disguise of 
Protestantism—Higher Life, Pentecostal, Holiness, 
Four-Fold Gospel-ism! Wherein is the difference in the 
assumption of infallibility, whether the Pope assumes 
it or if we do?* It is not an expressed tenet of belief 
with us, as it is with the Catholics, but the implication 
of it is so strong everywhere that we might as well 
come out in the open and profess it. Who will censor 
the censors? What boots it if the Hierarchy of Rome 
assumes lordship over our consciences or if the last little 
split-off of the split-off Mission does it? A vision of 
God’s Son clarifies the issue and sets the soul at perfect 
liberty from all encroachments and from all assump¬ 
tions of infallibility everywhere. Many of the churches 
of our day, regular and irregular, are as unable to endure 
the message of untrammeled freedom in Christ as the 
Catholic Church of Luther’s day was to bear the truth 
as preached by the men who broke with Luther fo,* 
liberty in Christ. 


♦There goes a man, with a heavy heart and downcast look 
and many misgivings, to a field of labor the Holy Spirit has not 
called him to, (and, therefore, will not largely use him in) but the 
Modern Hierarchy orders it and he must obey. It was riot so in 
the Early Church, they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost. Where 
does Christ’s Headship of the Church come in when men of like 
passions with us order us to fields of labor conscience and the 
Holy Ghost protest God does not call us? 





MODERN THESES 


79 


The banning- word, boycotting the free soul in 
Christ, is as systematically passed from ocean to ocean 
now, as then, and the passers are kin to the inquisitors. 
Paul never referred to the work assigned to him as his 
work, or my work or our work, but as THE WORK OF 
THE LORD. He warned the Colossians against the 
diverters from the sufficiency of Christ. “Beware lest 
ANY MAN spoil you thru philosophy and vain deceit, 
after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the 
world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily, (this fulness dwells no¬ 
where else God has not lodged it in any system) AND 
YE ARE COMPLETE IN HIM.” 

The effort to find the perfect church always ends in 
disappointment. All other lights are failing except the 
Light of the World; systems decay, for they are com¬ 
posed of that flesh which God says is grass. How many 
jealousies and animosities are gendered by the deprida- 
tions of proselytism. We may try all else and then must 
we return to Christ, for the Son only abides forever. 

Mr. Wesley wrote: “You know when a man leaves 
one religious party or society, it is a theme both to him 
and to them. Those of his old friends who loved him 
MERELY AS A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY (nu¬ 
merical love because he swelled the statistics of mem¬ 
bers by one) will cease to love him because the motive 
of it was to use him to swell the number of their sect, 
to help make a fair show in the flesh; or it was a selfish 
love for his tribute and not the pure, unselfish love of 
Christ for his own sake, which would not cease because 
he went to another fold but bid him God-speed in the 
new home. Those who have little or no grace will treat 






80 


MODERN THESES 


him as a Deserter, and express their anger or ill-will by 
speaking against him. This stabbing a man in the 
back as soon as he turns it upon us, I abhor and protest 
against, and discourage to the utmost of my power. 
One who forsakes his former friends will be tempted to 
speak evil of them, and to mention their faults, real or 
supposed, to justify himself for leaving them, or to re¬ 
commend himself to his new friends. I ALWAYS 
STOOD IN DOUBT OF SUCH CONVERTS, whether 
from the Calvinist, Moravians, Dissenters, or any other. 
Besides, a young convert is always zealous in making 
proselytes, which awakens suspicion in the deserted 
party, and arms them against further DEPREDA¬ 
TIONS” 

ERRONEOUS CONCEPTIONS OF SELF-DENIAL 
Much of the so-called self-denial is an expression of 
self-preference; it overlooks entirely the Master’s mean¬ 
ing of self-denial; it substitutes the denial of certain un¬ 
valued things to self instead of the denial of the mon¬ 
ster Self. As one suggests, there is no virtue in the 
mere denial of THINGS TO SELF, but there is all vir¬ 
tue in the denial of self. Jesus invites men to deny 
SELF. One may easily deny some things to self which 
cost little, and yet refuse to deny self which costs much, 
and he may develop a subtle self-righteousness while 
doing it. He may, like the Pharisee seek to make the 
inside clean by making the outside clean, and thus ignore 
the Master’s method, first make the inside clean that the 
outside may be clean also. First deny SELF and then 
the things which properly should be denied to self will 
follow. 

To use a homely illustration: one may substitute 




MODERN THESES 


81 


oleomargarine for butter because of inability to pay the 
difference in price, he needs sympathy; another is abun¬ 
dantly able to pay the difference in price, but is too 
stingy to pay it, but let him not, as he often does, think 
that this is what the Scriptures mean by the denial o^ 
self, it is only the denial of butter, with a motive that 
will not bear scrutiny; to have more money to add to the 
miserly hoard, not to aid the needy with the difference 
saved, which would be commendable. Of Jesus it is 
prophetically said—“Butter and honey shall he eat,” yet 
His life was a perfect expression of the denial of self. 

To sit up at night when traveling, in order to save 
the Lord's money, as an expression of self-denial, may 
be only the expression of the love of money and its 
hoarding, which exceeds the care of the Lord's body— 
the temple of the Holy Ghost, “which temple ye are.'' 

“But”, said a perplexed soul to the writer, “I can¬ 
not see the distinction you make between the denial of 
self and the denial of something or things to myself— 
are they not both the same? I denied myself a valu¬ 
able premium for the sake of a poor man who burned 
out. It was very dear to me and I had to struggle to 
part with it—did I not deny self?'' In fidelity to truth 
we must write that it was not the denial of self which 
Jesus demands of all who would follow Him. That was 
only the denial of the premium to self and left self un¬ 
touched—in fact it may have been an expression of self¬ 
preference if, in the giving there was a subtle motive 
underlying it—to be seen of men in its denial, to give 
because you were expected to and strong public senti¬ 
ment demanded it and you feared to be termed close, or 
a slacker. But had self been truly denied in the sense 




82 


MODERN THESES 




which Jesus meant, there would not have been the 
struggle to give to him in need, but joy in the sacrifice. 

Again, that party toward whom you say it is impos¬ 
sible to feel right you will love with a Christ-like com¬ 
passion, when you have learned the secret of denying 
self. 

Hence we see that one may deny to himself ever so 
many things and yet leave self untouched—yea, he will 
thereby often deepen the hold on self by his false concep¬ 
tion of true self-denial. 

There is a commendable frugality, an economy ol 
the fragment that nothing be lost, which is pleasing to 
God, but this is far removed from the miserly stinginess 
and from attempted salvation by works of so-called self 
denial, it is rather the healthy sign and fruit of salvation 
thru grace. 






MODERN THESES 


83 


Bigotry 

CHAPTER VI 

WESLEY’S LETTER NIGHT.—A CURE FOR 
NARROWNESS OF SPIRIT 

The following quotation is from Wesley: “The 
thing which I was greatly afraid of all this time, and 
which I resolved to use every possible method of pre¬ 
venting, was a narrowness of spirit (for we may have 
an amazing degree of it ourselves while ostensibly labor¬ 
ing to correct it in others) a party zeal (no zeal but for 
our party) a being straightened in our own bowels; that 
miserable bigotry which makes many so unready to be¬ 
lieve that there is any work of God but among ourselves. 
I thought it might be a help against this, frequently to 
read to all who were willing to hear, the accounts I 
received from time to time of the work which God is 
carrying on in the earth, both in our own and other 
countries, NOT AMONG US ALONE, but among those 
of various opinions and denominations. For this I 
allotted one evening in every month, and I find no cause 
to repent of my labor. It is generally a time of strong 
consolation to those who love God and all mankind for 
His sake; as well as of breaking down the partition 
walls which either the craft of the devil or the folly of 
men have built up; and of encouraging every child of 
God to say (when shall it once be?) “Whosoever doeth 
the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is 
my brother and sister and mother.” 

BIGOTRY MIGHT WELL BE PRONOUNCED 




84 


MODERN THESES 


Big-I-try.: it is an expression of the deepest self life. It 
is the refusal of fellowship or affection to any save those 
who come altogether to its way of thinking. Wesley 
defined the difference between his work and that of the 
Dissenters from the Established Church of England, to 
be in that while the Dissenters or Non-Conformists pro¬ 
ceeded to build their work on a basis of how fallen the 
Established Church and ministry were, Wesley and his 
helpers proceeded to show “how fallen all we ourselves 
were from the righteousness and power of God.” 

If the multitudinous sects of our day, founded often 
because of disgruntled feelings at the conditions of the 
present day churches, would heed the injunction of Paul 
to self-judgment, we would soon be in the throes of a 
mighty revival. Some one has said—“Those at home 
are without saving faith; those abroad without saving 
knowledge; with one it is light unused, with the other 
it is darkness unbroken.” |We say we possess light, we 
say we see, therefore our sin remains. Those who cruci¬ 
fied Christ knew not what they did—we know exactly 
what we do. There are blights on the history of Rome, 
but sad ones too on Protestantism which refuses com¬ 
munion or fellowship or baptism to all save those who 
come bowing submissively to its various tribunals, as 
did King John to the Pope. 

* * * * 

We have a communication from one pastor who told 
some of his disgruntled flock that if they could get more 
good in another place of worship and do more good 
there, he would be sincerely glad to give them their 
church letter. Let us say, parenthetically, of the trans- 





MODERN THESES 


85 


planted tree and of transplanted souls, that only by the 
most careful, painstaking cultivation can they survive 
at all the shock of the transfer. 

* * * * 

Christ gave His warning about hell’s undying worm 
in connection with His withering rebuke of bigotry— 
Mark 9:38-50. A partisan zealot said of his church that 
Jesus was a member of it and that the Apostle Paul was 
the ringleader and the founder of it, and that it was the 
only genuine church extant and had the best thing 
going. So far may bigotry go beyond the truth. 

SECTARIAN REVIVALS NOT PURELY 
CHRISTIAN 

Jude exhorts that we should '‘earnestly contend for 
the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” It was 
not once for all delivered to the self-appointed bosses of 
the saints! And the exhortation is not to contend for the 
shibboleth, or the formula, or mould, or peculiar tenets 
of the party, BUT FOR THE FAITH 1 It is frequently 
said that OUR church has had ITS meeting—We have 
had OUR REVIVAL! And there is just where the 
trouble lies—it is too often OUR MEETING, our kind, 
rather than the Masters kind. As one keen modern seer 
puts it—"Our revivals are not Christian; they are secta¬ 
rian revivals, grounding the people in the peculiarities 
of the sect” rather than enthroning within them the 
LORD JESUS. We stamp them with sectarian pecu¬ 
liarities, brand them with our brand, so that they are 
safely known as OUR PEOPLE, and together we re¬ 
joice and boast over it. They are glad to get with US 




86 


MODERN THESES 


and we are glad to have THEM—all of which is narrow, 
selfish and umChristian. 

Then comes the work of conserving: we must guard 
OUR people, we must keep OUR people together, we 
must see that they go to OUR meeting; they must 
attend OUR CAMP, and patronize OUR PUBLISH¬ 
ING HOUSE, buy and sell OUR BOOKS (which will 
contain nothing to break the spell of deception anymore 
than did the Papal censored literature); they must sub¬ 
scribe for and push OUR paper so that they will fail not 
of a constant culture in the spirit of OUR CHURCH, 
all of which may lead the soul into as great bondage as 
ever a Romanist was led into by the Hierarchy. 

This does not, however, apply to the soul that is 
entirely free, his work is simpler, he must only exalt 
Jesus and then all worthy things in all worthy move¬ 
ments are quickened. If we love only our own, what 
do we more than others? Then our converts are not 
Christian but sectarian. Christian converts follow 
Christ. Our consecration then is not Christian for it 
does not abandon all. Our sanctification is often emo¬ 
tional rather than Christian, judging from its fruits, 
manipulated by Satan working as an angel of light. 
Then our activities are not Christian but selfish, seeking 
our own and not the things of Christ. Our prayers are 
not Christian but seek to increase US with no interest 
in others outside OUR FOLD, whereas the Christian 
prays earnestly for all saints everywhere. Then our 
fellowship is un-Christian as it is limited to OUR own 
but the Christian has fellowship and companionship with 
all those having fellowship with the Father and with 
His Son Jesus Christ. If we have a sectarian spirit then 




MODERN THESES 


87 


we are not Christian in fairness and impartiality for the 
Master experienced joy at faith and character out¬ 
side the circle of his disciples and Paul commended 
the grace of God to all who loved him in sin¬ 
cerity. Paul was the apostle to the uncircumcision 
but he referred to two co-laborers who were of the other 
party, and wrote that they were a comfort to him. The 
modern pattern would be for divergent parties like the 
Nazarenes and the Methodists, in the unity of the Spirit, 
to work so harmoniously together as to derive comfort 
from each other’s fellowship. 

But, says one, would you have us all called by the 
same name and worship in the same place? No, not 
necessarily, but we are all called to have the same Spirit. 
The great need of the hour is for revivals which will 
make men Christian rather than sectarian, revivals of 
loyalty to Christ rather than to party; that shall save us 
from being ISTS and make us like Christ; That shall 
save us from being mere members of a sect and in the 
true sense make us living members of the Body of 
Christ. Great enthusiasm over the great meeting we 
had will not answer for the lack of transformation from 
selfishness to benevolence and from narrowness to the 
Spirit of Jesus; and from small to great-souledness; 
from Pharisaism to Christ. Christian revivals will make 
us permanently different! 

We may believe, theoretically, ever so many things 
about the Bible, God and Christ, and experiences, and 
evidences and healing, but without righteousness in all 
departments of life, we fail as Christians. The Moham¬ 
medan follows Mohammed, the Mormon follows Mor- 
monism; Buddhists, Budda, Confucianists follow Con- 




88 


MODERN THESES 


fucianism; Science (falsely so-called) follows Mrs. 
Eddy, and the theorist follows his theory; the emotion¬ 
alist follows his emotions; and the sectarian his sect; 
the Churchman his church; and the enthusiast his en¬ 
thusiasms, the healer his healing; but THE CHRIS¬ 
TIAN FOLLOWS CHRIST. 

The great need is not to join some church or reli¬ 
gious organization which claims to be founded on the 
teachings of the Bible, and live up to its so-called prin¬ 
ciples as a substitute for that faith in His Son’s atoning 
sacrifice, which God requires, but to follow Him whither¬ 
soever He leads, into whatsoever church. 

A man wrote the writer that he had established a 
new infallible church and that it was our duty, under 
penalty of eternal damnation if we refused, to leave all 
others and to join his. Laugh not at this fanatic, as he 
has many familiars. A holiness church evangelist said 
that the holiness people of a certain city would all go to 
hell unless they joined his church. Shades of the Vati¬ 
can ! The Roman monster has arisen again under 
subtler claims of superior sanctity. The same humbug- 
gery with a changed label!! All the free soul in Christ 
Jesus has to do is to stand fast in the glorious untram¬ 
meled liberty wherein Christ has made free, and 
denounce these would-be popes and lords over God’s 
heritage. When they cry—Lo here! or Lo there! believe 
them not. Lo, Christ! is sufficient. 

The early church was an association of unworldly 
and other-worldly, spiritually-minded people, with a 
common life in their Lord. They were exhorted to 
cleave to the Lord on whom they believed, this was their 
strong bond of uflipn. Christ is the Chief Shepherd of 




MODERN THESES 


89 


the sheep; He is the Head of the Church; He is the 
Bishop of the soul; to whom they are solely responsible. 
His sheep know His voice and follow HIM. 

Men would limit God, often, to certain places of 
operation; to cut and dried methods of interpretation; 
to stock expressions, but He holds them in derision. He 
will not stay in the corrall; He will not be cornered, 
syndicated or monopolized. He bursts every straight- 
jacket in which men seek to encase Him. He is always 
doing the unusual and the unexpected. 

“AUT CAESAR AUT NULLUS”—HE WOULD BE 
SUPREME OR HE WOULD BE NOTHING! 

There is some evidence that John Wesley would be 
“aut Caesar aut nullus”—he would be supreme or he 
would be nothing. He said to John Fletcher: “It is not 
good that the supreme power be lodged in many hands. 
Let there be one chief Governor.” Very commendable 
and scriptural when Jesus is that One. With keenest 
appreciation of the great good this man did, and with a 
sense of obligation to him under God, yet our cry is not 
—“Back to Wesley”, but—“On with Christ!” 

You say. Well, but Wesley gave men liberty to 
preach the Gospel. We ask—Who was John Wesley 
that he should assume the perogative to give men this 
liberty? Christ alone says to whom He will—“I have 
ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit.” 
This is the only true ordination; without it, men lay 
hands on us in vain. 

Wesley tried to bind his forms on succeeding gen¬ 
erations and to him is traced the germ of the unity rule 




90 


MODERN THESES 


in the Bishops’ Cabinet where all are supposed to make 
unanimous, that with which some do not agree, and 
which good Bishop Warren, now gone to heaven, refused 
to sanction when the matter of the elimination of the 
paragraph on worldly amusements came up. We are 
sure this caused him no regrets when he saw the Lord. 

No age has a right to saddle on coming generations, 
their pretended infallible theological deductions. 

FALSE GLORYING 

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor the 
mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his riches, 
wrote the prophet of the Old Testament and the apostle 
of the New exhorts, after presenting Christ as the source 
of all the soul’s need: “He that glorieth, according as it 
is written, let him glory in the Lord.” However, what 
do we behold on every hand?—Men glorying in man; in 
his achievements; in commercialism, big business, archi¬ 
tecture, great cities, projects, railways, subways, tunnels, 
art, music, modern hotels, world celebrities, theatres, 
singers, fine cars, houses, bric-a-brac, cut-glass, expen¬ 
sive jewelry and clothing, Haviland china, costly Per¬ 
sian rugs, fine damask, country estates, summer cot¬ 
tages and winter palaces. 

Men glory in reform movements which do not re¬ 
form; in prohibition which does not prohibit; in poli¬ 
tics, education and culture, and in all of God’s good 
things, but apart from God. 

They glory in fine churches, organizations, elabor¬ 
ate ritual, pageantry, religious parades, dogmas, doc¬ 
trines, polity, government, war, national cities, statis- 




MODERN THESES 


91 


tics and numerical strength, denominational names, in¬ 
stitutions, enterprises, conferences, camp-meetings, 
periodicals, blessings, experiences, works of grace, bodily 
healing, Spiritism, Eddyism, New Thought, heavenly 
choirs, evidences, signs, preternaturalism, the gifts of the 
Spirit, holiness, sanctification, leaders, church names— 
many of the enumerations commendable, except when 
they exclude God Himself; then He who will have no 
other Gods before Him, must wither all which usurps 
His place; or, as the Prophet Isaiah puts it, “He will 
stain the pride of all glory.” 






MODERN THESES 


93 


The Master's Withering Condemnation of 
Proselytism 

CHAPTER VII 

WE ARE RELIGIOUS SINN FEIN-ERS 
(GAELIC FOR “OURSELVES”) 

* * * * 

“For I have no man like-minded, who will 
naturally care for your state. For all seek their 
own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” 
—Phil. 2:20-21. 

“I have no one like him (Timotheus) for gen¬ 
uine interest in your welfare. Everybody is 
selfish, instead of caring for Jesus Christ.”— 
MofTatt’s Translation. 

* * * * 

CHRIST HIMSELF THE LIGHT 

Like the dragon in Revelation, the proselyter stands 
near when the child is born into the kingdom of heaven, 
ready to catch it away to his sectarian lair. A concrete 
example. A brother received the sanctification of the 
Spirit. The sheep stealer stood by and said—“Now, 
brother, you are going to walk in the light, are you not?” 
The pertinent reply was, “If you mean by ‘walking in 
the light’, the light of your little church, No. If you 
mean walking in Christ’s light, Yes!” 




MODERN THESES 


94 


- x'SvN'N'W 

.V' . X x\ 

Christ, Himself, is the Light of the world! Our 
little systems are not the light of the world. They are 
often, with their spiritual blindness and narrowness, the 
darkness of the world, shutting up the way to the king¬ 
dom of heaven, not entering themselves and hindering 
those who would. If we follow Him we shall have the 
Light of Life; there is no darkness in Him. If we fol¬ 
low them, we may find the great darkness of supposed 
light. 

Let all men, movements, churches and preachers, 
teachers and evangelists and leaders be tested by the 
One who lightens every man that comes into the world! 
It is not that He lightens every man that cometh into 
our little denominational world, as some proselyters 
vainly argue. 

Not long ago, on entering the parsonage of a nar¬ 
row sectarianism we were struck with the inappropriate¬ 
ness in the light of his views, in having this motto on 
the door—“Salvation is of the Lord/’ We cannot limit 
salvation, then, to our little systems or sect. 

Emerson said, “Our goodness must have some edge 
to it, else it is none.” Let us examine the pretensions of 
men to goodness, and their claims to the right to levy 
tribute on us. Let us try their claims to leadership over 
us. “If they speak not according to My Word, it is 
because there is no light in them.” Let us insist upon 
some tangible return for our sacred tribute. Ah, too 
long we have claimed to see light in the light of men 
and their systems and theologies! Our light has been 
second-handed, sometimes seen thru the smoked glasses 
of the ages. Job said. “I have heard of thee thru the 
hearing of the ear.” Oh, let us break for liberty and 




MODERN THESES 


95 


go to the Fountain of Light and Life direct! Paul’s 
right to leadership rested on his direct call from God, 
giving power and spiritual helpfulness, not an assumed 
ecclesiastical dominion. “Not that we would have 
dominion over your faith”, he wrote, “but be helpers of 
your joy.” “For by faith (not by Paul) ye stand.” He 
who said that he was “less than the least of all saints”, 
had no desire to lord it over God’s heritage. 

There is little more ultimate hope in a new organi¬ 
zation than in the old Protestant one, for there is no 
error into which the old has fallen that the new may not 
fall. The great need of the soul is not an organiza¬ 
tion or movement, but the vision of Jesus the Son who 
abides forever. 

Said the proselyter, “Why don’t you come over with 
us, where you can keep thawed out?” Thus diverting 
the soul from faith in a Person to a system. But keep¬ 
ing thawed out is not contingent on a location, but only 
on having the heavenly fire within. Jesus, Moses and 
the prophets were flames of fire wherever they went. 

To a bright girl, sanctified and shining amid the 
spiritual declension of a socialized church, the zealot 
said: “To go on with God and work and worship accept¬ 
ably to Him, you must cross over the river to us.” But 
God says not so—to have victory she need only go on 
with the Lord Jesus Christ. He saves wherever men 
call upon Him. He will be confined nowhere. “But, ’ 
says one, “we have been coming to this place for twenty 
years—it is a sacred spot to us.” So say the Moham¬ 
medans and Catholics of their places of holy pilgrimage. 
Worship God, not the place. “In this temple is One 
greater than the temple.” 




96 


MODERN THESES 


MODERN PHARISAISM 

One of the many cases of modern Pharisaism was 
that of a prominent professor of the higher life for 
twenty years, active in Camp-Meeting and revival work, 
prominent at the altar services, a loud shouter, who 
made the startling discovery, under penetrating truth, 
that if she had died she would have gone to hell. She 
had been raspy, harsh, critical, faultfinding, sour, cen¬ 
sorious, abusive and denunciatory of others; her heart 
was full of unbelief; she confessed jealousy because 
another woman, a stranger to her, had the more striking 
personality. She deliberately resisted the Word of God 
which searched out her heart’s condition, and rather 
than admit her true state, said within herself that the 
preacher was inspired of the devil to preach the trutn 
which made her feel so uncomfortable. She finally 
humbled herself, God took away her heart of stone, 
refined away the harshness, melted her heart and eyes 
to tears, gave her a meek and quiet spirit, a full heart 
and a shining face and unctious testimony. Thus one 
may have the form of godliness, hold the theory as cor¬ 
rectly as the straightest and most strict Pharisee, and 
yet be utterly destitute of that spirit of Christ without 
which we are none of His. 

PROSELYTISM A CHARACTERISTIC OF 
PHARISAISM 

Paul wrote that he had no man save Timothy like 
minded who would naturally care for the state of certain 
disciples, “for all men seek their own and not the things 
of Christ.” He wrote of others who would creep in after 
his departure to take away disciples after themselves; 




MODERN THESES 


97 


and yet of others, who would compel certain ones to be 
circumcised that they might glory in their flesh; and 
finally of those self-seekers who were looking for things 
made ready to hand, the fruit of other men’s labors, to 
avoid which selfishness, the apostle labored in virgin 
territory where Christ had not been preached. 

How much zeal there is today to build up ourselves 
though we must tear down others to do it. Would it 
not be as honest to tear down another man’s house to 
build our own as to tear down another’s church in order 
to build our own? How often the confidence of good 
people has been violated when loaning a church to some 
religious adventurer under promise of fair play, only 
to be repaid for the courtesy by having the best sheep 
stolen from the flock, branded, fleeced and imprisoned in 
the new corrall and given no more freedom to leave than 
a priest-bound slave to the Roman system. 

The proselyting spirit is an obsession organizing 
itself into a self-constituted Lookout Committee, ever 
alert for the poor, little unsophisticated stray sheep, 
browsing around in search of variety in pasture, little 
realizing that the owners of the pastures or corrals 
which have often very pretentious names, will no more 
feed them without wanting to own them, than the selfish 
farmer would pasture his neighbor’s stock without 
charge. 

It would not be so sad if the stealing, fleecing and 
corailing of the Lord’s sheep were followed by building 
them up in the holy faith instead of training in the pecu¬ 
liarities of the new system; or if those who are most sly 
and efficient in sheep-stealing were also most efficient in 
feeding them. They seem little to suspect that their 




98 


MODERN THESES 


shibboleths, cliches (stereotyped expressions), issues, 
peculiar tenets, sectarian traditions, are often, at best, 
only husks; that Christ only is the Bread of Life. Let 
us ever remember, may we say here, that when tempted 
to speak of “Our people”, that the word of God desig¬ 
nates them as “The flock of God.” 

There is a silent understanding often, among pros- 
elyters, and they make the intended vctim feel it, that 
unless the sheep leave everything and come Over alto¬ 
gether with them, that he is not going all the way with 
God, which is utterly without Scriptural foundation. 

Why steal the fruit of other men’s labor’s? Why 
not seek to excel in the edification of the Church rather 
than the ownership of the sheep? Why deceive the 
people into believing that a mere change of church 
relation is equivalent to a change of heart? 

A man, under proselyting pressure, left one church 
to join another. He was wealthy and very stingy. Dur¬ 
ing the transfer ceremony he said: “Why I feel different 
already.” But was he really different? Not he! His 
deceived heart had led him astray. He had only changed 
the sphere of his bondage. ,He was not broken. He 
was cursed with the same miser heart in the new church. 
It is as great a crime to receive stolen goods as to steal 
them. The facts are that in this same church, composed 
of theoretical holiness professors (all prosperous 
farmers) they did not give as much money, all told, 
including the gifts of their new acquisition, as one well 
saved, truly sanctified man would do each year with a 
nominal income! 

The Lord’s command is: “Feed my sheep!” The 
true pastor will not encourage disgruntled folk in flitting 




MODERN THESES 


99 


from church to church. He will however, encourage 
them to repentance. Well he knows that the new sphere 
is powerless to break the bondage of sin. 

A man came to the writer and asked if he did not 
think he ought to change his church relations. Observ¬ 
ing the amber juice decorating the corners of his mouth 
and flowing down to the base of the chin, we replied that 
our candid opinion was that what he needed most was a 
change of heart! 

The sin of proselytism everywhere prevalent in 
greater or less degree is doubtless one reason why God 
cannot bless many of the churches with a mighty pente- 
costal outpouring. The unfair way in which they are 
built up in membership, grieves the Holy Spirit. 

Is there not some way to repent of our sinful divi¬ 
sions, and love one another, thereby removing one large 
stumbling block to a world of scoffers ? Can we not see 
that the interest of the cause of Christ at large, far 
transcends the success of any one local church branch? 
If proselyters were as jealous to win men to Christ as 
they are to win them to their systems, how commend¬ 
able would be their zeal. But having no Christ to offer 
man, they offer in His place, a transfer. 

A Conference needs to be called for the disarma¬ 
ment of the sinful sectarian spirit. It is indeed strange 
that if our church names are so important, that Christ 
did not mention any of them. One poor zealot tried to 
prove that his church was mentioned in the Bible— 
“Amethyst”—a Methist. 

Although the unifying of church organizations is 
impracticable, undesirable, a worthless camouflage could 
it be realized, there needs to be repentance because of 




100 


MODERN THESES 


mudslinging, biting and devouring one another. There 
needs to be the brotherly spirit, the helping hand, and 
the sympathetic heart for all God’s children who have 
entered other folds. Many of the modern sects (holiness 
and otherwise) have no more dealings one with the other 
than did the Jews of Christ’s time with the Samaritans— 
ambition for leadership, desire for preeminence, fear of 
losing the stolen sheep, and jealousy, keeps them apart:* 

It is true that if sufficient pressure as to the great¬ 
ness of reputation of some of the leaders and workers 
be brought to bear upon the situation, they can get 
together for a three-to-four-days’ high pressure Conven¬ 
tion and show a seeming unity, but only to drift into the 
old antagonisms when the camouflage unity spell is over. 

When the Spirit moves a Community, calling to 
self-effacement and unity of all God’s children in Christ, 
carnality stirs in a multitude of activities and a seven¬ 
teen days’ Prayer Meeting is put on to keep the stolen 
sheep from straying from the fold. 

We may tell hungry sheep ever so often that they 
are the only really worth while sheep in the world, but 
they will soon die if we do not feed them. Coddling 
saints and throwing bouquets at them is not a substi¬ 
tute for building them up in the faith and rooting and 
grounding them in the Truth. We grievously mislead 
the people when we appeal to them on the ground of 
party spirit; and when we tell them that they are the 
Lord’s only worth-while people, or that their church is 
the best church going. 

Said a sister to us, “From the teaching of our elders 


•It is frequently easier to get the so-termed nominal churches 
together for a union revival effort than to get the independent 
churches lined up for a united campaign. penaeni 





MODERN THESES 


101 


and bishops and preachers, and from the whole tenor 
of our periodicals, the idea has been ingrained in me that 
none are right but us; and yet, when God searched out 
her heart, she publicly confessed that she did not feel 
right toward a single member of her crowd. It is the 
old error of the substitution of a doctrine for the vision 
of Christ. Yet we cannot blame the poor sheep for the 
ambitious leaders of this people have caused them to 
err. Instead of building them up in Christ, they have 
been built up in sectarian peculiarities. 

Many times we have had overtures made to us and 
offers of work if we would join the church where we 
were holding meetings, with the sincerely pious bait: “J 
covet your life for Our Church!” How much nobler to 
covet a life for the Lord and the larger service of minis¬ 
tering to those other sheep not of this fold. 

After a thorough doctrinal examination while travel¬ 
ing to Chicago, a zealous proselyter informed us that we 
were so much like his people in our views that we be¬ 
longed to them and did not know it—it only remained to 
go thru the process of transfer and we would be wel¬ 
comed with wide open arms by the brethren; the doors 
would fly open among them for service, etc., etc. The 
Lord said: “Behold! I set before you an open door, and 
no man can shut it.” How much more blessed to be 
one of His, than “one of them.” 

So, everywhere we turn we must guard against the 
snare of the proselyters who would entrap us in their 
sectarian bondage and rob of the freedom which we have 
in Christ Jesus to love and serve all alike. By this we 
would not intimate that there is not proper appreciation 
of sane denominationalism. 





MODERN THESES 


103 


Veiled Indulgences—The Modern Sale of 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE MODERN SALE OF INDULGENCES 

No man, pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, preacher 
evangelist or College President, Protestant, Roman, 
Lutheran, Reformed, Holiness, Alliance or Pentecostal, 
has the right to sell, give or encourage indulgences, 
ancient or modern; secret or veiled. Indulgences are 
of two kinds—open or ancient and veiled or modern. An 
open or ancient indulgence was such as Tetzel cried for 
sale in public in Germany, in Luther’s time, by which, 
upon payment of various sums of money for the con¬ 
struction of St. Peters at Rome, the purchaser was given 
the permission of the church to sin without the imposi¬ 
tion of ecclesiastical penalty. 

A veiled, modern, conceded or secret indulgence is 
that silent mutual understanding between an ambitious 
modern churchman and a captain of industry or big busi¬ 
ness, by which, upon payment of tribute money, he is 
enrolled for life service without its scriptural prepara¬ 
tion ; or by which, upon his endowment of some institu¬ 
tion, he is conceded to be a Christian apart from regen¬ 
eration and his name is blazoned abroad as a fine type of 
Christian philanthropist or benefactor, or a copper name¬ 
plate, with the donor’s name thereon, is placed conspicu¬ 
ously on the walls of the institution endowed, though he 
may have violated the ethics of Jesus in the procure¬ 
ment of the means of his philanthropy. 

To the would-be-modern purchaser of indulgence 




104 


MODERN THESES 


to sin by the payment of tribute money to Protestant 
systems, the man of God should give an ancient answer: 
/‘Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought 
to buy the gift of God with money. ,, The preacher who, 
knowingly, receives money from an unrepentant man, in 
the Name of Christ, is as guilty of the principle of the 
sale of indulgences as was Tetzel. Modern tribute 
money rattling in the coffers of Protestant Churches pro¬ 
duces no more right to the indulgence of sin than did 
the coin rattling in Tetzel’s box; it is as much the giving 
of indulgence, or condoning sin without protest when 
accepting tribute from the sinner, as it is when sending 
the hawkers of indulgences abroad openly selling them. 

The modern man who contributes money for phil¬ 
anthropy is as surely lost if he be not born again of the 
Spirit, as the man of the dark ages who sought salvation 
by purchasing indulgences. Benevolence, apart from 
faith in God, was the testimony of Christ against the 
world's religious works which aroused their hatred. 

There are great societies gathering millions of the 
people's money, including much from church people, 
which are atheistic; the name of Christ is forbidden in 
their chapters. The evil is not in the work which they 
do but in the exclusion of Christ: all the philanthropic 
work of the world without reference to Christ, is evil. 
He said, “The world hateth me because I testify that 
the works thereof are evil.” 

Satan is religious but not spiritual; his most effec¬ 
tive work of deception is done in religious realms, lull¬ 
ing men to a false sense of security because, forsooth, 
they are charitable. Salvation by works in the olden 




MODERN THESES 


105 


time was no more futile than the attempt at salvation 
by the newly manufactured modern works. 

A prominent writer regards the most destructive 
heresy of our time (Destructive Criticism, Evolution 
and New Theology notwithstanding) the emphasis in a 
thousand subtle forms of the doctrine of salvation by 
human effort apart from faith in Christ. 

He who makes small gifts to the poor to be seen of 
God is more highly favored of Him than he who makes 
large contributions to popular charities to be seen of 
men. The Lord has no use for modern gifts of money 
from sinners. He cares not for the gift without the 
giver. That only is acceptable to Him which represents 
love, devotion and sacrifice. “Thy money perish with 
thee” is His Word to the unspiritual. The least valued 
gift which a man can give to God is money. We recall 
those who first “gave themselves to the Lord”—when 
men really do this, they never withhold their means for 
the love of money, which is the root of all evil, is then 
purged from their hearts. 

To get money for His so-called work, by hook or 
crook, or by the appeal to pride, or party spirit, public 
sentiment or opinion, can never be acceptable to Him. 
“The magnitude of the donation does not hide the sin 
of the large balance withheld from God,” who estimates 
the gift by what it represents of true sacrifice. The 
poor widows mite was more acceptable than the liberal 
checks of the wealthy, for she had nothing over and the 
bulk of their hoardings remained intact. 

Contributions to Y. M. C. A/s, Y. W. C. A/s, or for 
the construction of similar projects of the community, 
do not regenerate the contributors. The C’S could be 




106 


MODERN THESES 


dropped from these organizations without any loss to 
the cause of Christ (often, rather to its advancement) 
since swearing, dancing, smoking, pool and billiard play¬ 
ing are great stumbling blocks to the cause of Christ. 

To build Christless Protestant Institutions with the 
means obtained by un-Christlike business methods, or 
with the motive of mere Community betterment, or to 
imitate other cities, or to increase business or to gain a 
reputation for giving, is to justify the wicked for reward 
and to start anew the doctrine of veiled indulgences. 

The world’s giving, benevolence or philanthropy, is 
popular and selfish, as a rule, not given unless there is 
promise of good return of the equivalent with interest, 
it may be in business, or reputation or to save the with¬ 
ering epithet, “Slacker,” or to be in line with what others 
are doing. The world’s giving depends on public senti¬ 
ment, the greater publicity it is given, the greater the 
inflow of gifts to the treasury; the volume is greater too 
if the subject can be given international publicity. The 
world will love its own, especially in time of calamity. 
Its benevolence flows at special seasons; it is a tempor¬ 
ary frenzy at Christmas time. If there is some great 
catastrophe, an epidemic, cyclone, tidal wave, volcanic 
eruption, or a great world war, the giving assumes 
gigantic proportions, and for all the material relief on 
these occasions, we are grateful. 

The benevolence of the true child of God, however, 
is not seasonal nor catastrophic; it needs not a special 
external stimulus to bring it forth; it is perennial, always 
flowing, needing no other inspiration than the Spirit’s 
indwelling, which sheds abroad the love of God in the 
heart. The child of God will give constantly according 




MODERN THESES 


107 


to his capacity; in fact his generosity is so great and 
it flows out so constantly that when special seasons 
come, it is often low from the continuous drain. If there 
are no apparent channels thru which to give, he seeks 
them. 

“LOVERS OiF PLEASURE 
MORE THAN LOVERS OF GOD.”—(II Tim. 3:4) 

The United States Commissioner of Education esti¬ 
mates that during the year 1920 while the world starved, 
we expended for joy-riding automobiles, luxurious liv¬ 
ing, tobacco, jewelry and other luxuries 
$22,700,000,000.00 

During the same time we gave to Missions to pro¬ 
mote Christ’s Kingdom abroad 

$37,886,040.00 

Or comparatively we expended 
$600.00 

in luxuries for ourselves and 

$1.00 

to Evangelize the world abroad. 

—Taken from Family Altar League, 
Marquette Bldg., Chicago. 

Even of the $37,000,000 expending for Missions, 
much was spent in promulgating, not evangelical, but 
apostate doctrines. As the “Wonderful Word” puts it 
—“When believers cease being unbelievers, God will 
work!!!!” 

The only solution is such an outpouring of the Holy 
Ghost, as will sweep the fires of revival all over the 
world! 





































































MODERN THESES 


109 


National Sins 

CHAPTER IX 

The shameless immodesty of the day calls for re¬ 
formation. The half-dressed modern woman should be 
arrested and prosecuted for menacing the morals of the 
times. Go back ten years ago! Had women dressed or 
undressed then as now, they would have been shunned 
as denizens of the tenderloin who were segregated in a 
certain morally leprous district no Christian would walk 
through unless on the mission of calling sinners to 
repentance. Modesty and many modern women have 
parted company. Let us pray for a speedy reconcilia¬ 
tion. The first order God gave to the fallen pair in 
Eden was for the covering of their nude bodies that the 
shame of their nakedness should not appear; and the 
first evidence of their fallen condition was couched in 
the question He asked: “Who told thee that thou wist 
naked ?” 

Depravity, nakedness, immodesty and possession 
by unclean, shameless, foul demons, go hand in hand and 
cheek by jowl. The demon-possessed man of Gedara 
wore no clothes. /How easily is the affinity traced be¬ 
tween his condition and that of the shameless modern 
woman! Frequently, when Christ delivered from demon 
possession, He called attention to their relation to im¬ 
purity: “Come out, thou foul spirit!” or “thou unclean 
spirit.” There is further light on the relation to demon 
possession of the modern nudity craze in the fact told us 
by the misisonaries from Africa that as soon as the poor 
nude heathen find Christ, their first instinct is to cover 




110 


MODERN THESES 


their bodies.* A well known Christian leader, recently 
returned from a world tour of mission stations said that 
even in her nudity, the heathen woman is more modest 
in her demeanor in many cases than some of our civil¬ 
ized women, passing by with downcast eyes and quiet, 
dignified mien. 

To the immodest attire of the guilty women of the 
time is chargeable much of the evil thinking and acting 
and speaking by the groups of men on the street cor¬ 
ners and the general immorality of the day: man natur¬ 
ally weak, and only strong when in Christ, is greeted at 
every turn by the suggestive; young boys in their teens 
stand gazing at the nude representations of women on 
the magazine-covers, calendars, paintings or statuary, 
making vulgar remarks; groups of men stand on the 
street-corners and watch and laugh as the nude show 
passes by. When a specially shocking type passes, 
people can be seen standing in the center of the block 
gazing after the indecent specimens. Jack, the Peepers 
need no longer skulk around in the dark, they can re¬ 
main in the open. Who will say that the man suddenly 
appearing in a Nebraska city with buggy whip which he 
laid lustily on the women’s semi-bare limbs, was not the 
scourge of God? 

We once found a young man on the train weeping. 
He had been a Christian but had fallen thru his besetting 
weakness, and convulsively he sobbed: “I do want to be 
right, but the women so expose themselves in their 
immodest attire that I cannot help seeing them as I walk 


*For a further study of the subject of Demon Possession 
see the Author’s book on “Our Invisible Foes.” 





MODERN THESES 


111 


the streets and I go to the bad women for the appease¬ 
ment of the lust they arouse/’ 

Infanticide (child murder) is a common practice in 
America, statistics showing over a million abortions 
annually in the United States, not to mention many pre¬ 
cincts from which we have no reports and the many 
potential cases where preventatives are used to fore¬ 
stall the necessity of abortion, and the amazing part of 
it is that we are so losing the sense of sin and wrong 
that such cold-blooded murder is thought innocent and 
justifiable. Unlike the practice of infanticide in certain 
Pacific Islands before the advent of Christianity, where 
they waited for the birth of the child before they mur¬ 
dered it, in enlightened America we kill the child before 
it is born and sometimes kill the mother too in the abor¬ 
tion, or else incapacitate her for future motherhood; and 
sometimes worse, the attempted murder fails and the 
child is born a sub-normal or a criminal, with an uncon¬ 
trollable mania for cruelty or murder, which often sends 
him to the electric chair. If self-incrimination were nec¬ 
essary in the world, there would be such a jam at the 
doors of our penal institutions that no one could get in. 

Many of the modern society women can swear like 
troopers, play cards like seasoned gamblers, drink booze 
like the most confirmed tippler, smoke cigarettes and 
dress (or undress) like a denizen of the tenderloin, mur¬ 
der their children by abortion, and sad to state, belong to 
a church at the same time and have a reputation for 
respectability and get away with it. 

Some of us are praising God that iHe gave us 
mothers of the old type, reverent, God-fearing, modest, 
and that they gave us birth before the advent of the 




112 


MODERN THESES 


wild, half-dressed, bare-legged “Flapper” type, who 
dresses to appeal to the base in man. 

A recent account of a burial ground for dogs, where 
society women repair to weep and pray (?) over their 
departed canine, is almost too sickening to record. 

A TAME CROP IS NEVER REAPED FROM THE 
SOWING OF WILD OATS 

Five hundred and ten percent increase in dope fiends 
in New York, general crime conditions worse every¬ 
where, the substitution of the divorce ring, (decorated 
with Cupid’s broken bow, with space for the addition of 
a jewel for each new husband acquired) for the wedding 
ring, are sad signs of a world which some tell us has 
been purified by war’s blood! In Omaha, Nebraska, one 
out of every two marriages ends in divorce! The 
record! 

Marriage (unadulterated by affinities, infidelities 
and divorce and re-marriage at caprice) is everywhere 
sanctioned in the Word of God—“Marriage is honorable 
in all and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and 
adulterers God will judge.” Though the mills of God 
seem to grind slowly, yet with terrible exactness will 
they grind well! Sin will still surely be found out! The 
soul that sins shall die! “Every man that doeth wrong 
shall receive for the wrong he doeth.” 

It is no more lawful for modern Herods to have 
their brother’s wife than for the Herod of John the Bap¬ 
tist s time. The law of the land will condone things for 
which the violated law of God will doom forever. 

‘IHeaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word 
shall not pass away.” Hear this Word 




MODERN THESES 


113 


“And the Pharisees came to Him and asked Him— 
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting 
Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did 
Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered 
to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And 
Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of 
your heart he wrote you this precept,.. But from the 
beginning of creation God made them male and female. 
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, 
and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one 
flesh: so then they are no more twain but one flesh. 
What therefore God hath joined together let not man 
put asunder.” —Mark 10:2-9. 

The national government is posting warnings 
against the sin of abortion or infanticide and the pre¬ 
vention of conception by transmission of word or device 
thru the United States mails. The penalty is $5000.00 
fine or five years’ imprisonment or both, a light enough 
penalty for potential and actual murder. Well they 
might take such action as at the present rate among 
Americans of abortion and the prevention of conception 
in a few decades the Americans will be more nearly 
extinct than the Indians. Let the Government find some 
way of punishing those mother-in-laws, mothers and old 
women who maliciously teach young women how to 
prevent conception instead of to love their husbands 
and bear children as Paul enjoined and thereby stop the 
Adversary from just blasphemy. It is alarming how 
prevalent this sin is in the world Church and higher 
life (?) movements. 




114 


MODERN THESES 


OUR COUNTRY 

“Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord”; not 
whose god is itself or money. The curse of Jehovah is 
on the nation that makes gold its god; which makes gold 
more precious than man. 

That we think more of gold than God is evident; it 
is our standard of value. We shoot men like dogs for 
touching it—arm men to the teeth to guard it. The 
happy day is coming when, as God has said, a man will 
be more precious than gold. It is useless to say on our 
coin—“In God we trust” and then oppress His poor. 
His word pronounces the most terrible judgments on 
those who oppress the poor. 

The recent and present unemployment is a crime 
which calls to high heaven for vengeance on those bank¬ 
ers and financiers who cause it by holding the means of 
employment and exchange from circulation at a time 
when there is more money in hiding than ever in the 
history of the country—gorged swollen fortunes from 
war profits! 

Money is scarce unless, in some centers, you are 
willing to pay the usurer 3jE4 percent per month, to 
whom the poor, depleted financiers refer you to, and 
who get a rake-off, it is said, for the reference. When a 
little corner banking establishment makes $500,000 a 
year, or takes it, it is evident that all the hold-up artists 
are not yet apprehended., When our financial wizards cry 
—“Hard Times!” in one breath and in the next are eager 
to bind several billions on the people for the bonus— 
which bonus we have no word against, but rather the 
inconsistency of crying “Hard Times!” and then bind- 




MODERN THESES 


115 


ing five billions on the already bled-to-the-white tax¬ 
payers, we ask—Where will the arbitrary taxing end? 
We used to hear—“No taxation without representation!” 
Where does the representation come in in quadrupling 
taxes without consulting the individual who is supposed 
to pay the taxes out of an income that has been that 
many times diminished? 

While prosecuting the left-over slackers from the 
war, let us not forget the guilty owners of the slacker 
dollars who are potential murderers. Hear John, the 
Beloved’s testimony: “But whoso hath this world’s goods 
and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his 
bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love 
of God in him?” It was in this connection that he 
wrote: “Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life 
abiding in Him.” These guilty men are frequently in 
the church. God pity the minister under whose preach¬ 
ing they are never troubled! They will not be warned 
by the signs of the times nor by the warnings, threaten- 
ings, and prophecies of the Word of God, to desist from 
their greed and avarice; perhaps not until the wrath of 
God breaks upon them will they realize their awful sin, 
and cry aloud for the rocks and mountains to fall upon 
them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. 
There is nothing more certain than that they shall reap 
as they have sown. 

Personally, we have no complaint, but are only seek¬ 
ing to record what, from prophecy, seems to be the hand¬ 
writing on the wall of impending doom. Hear James: 
“Come now, you rich men, weep and shriek over your 
impending miseries! You have been storing up treas¬ 
ure in the very last days; your wealth lies rotting and 




116 


MODERN THESES 


your clothes are moth-eaten; your gold and silver lie 
rusted over, and their rust will be evidence against you 
it will devour your flesh like fire. See, the wages of 
which you have defrauded the workmen who mowed 
your fields call out, and the cries of the harvesters have 
reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have rev¬ 
elled on earth and plunged into dissipation; you have 
fattened yourselves as for the Day of slaughter; you 
have condemned, you have murdered the righteous-un- 
resisting.” (Moffatt). 

Dr. Haldeman says that according to this prophecy 
of James “the rich will become the prey of the mob and 
accumulated wealth in the hands of the few will be 
seized and scattered like grains of sand.” 

The merry game of taking money by unjust com¬ 
bines will continue until the cry of the oppressed enters 
into the ears of Jehovah and He arises to “shake terribly 
the earth !” 

For many years, the motto of the country's leading 
paper has been: “Our country! In her intercourse with 
foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our 
country, right or wrong!” This is a sort of national sec¬ 
tarianism which places country before God. That is 
equivalent to the cry of “The Fatherland! The Father- 
land !” 

Dr. Wayland, a writer of books on Moral Phil¬ 
osophy which were used in the Boston High Schools a 
hundred years ago, and which read like devotional books, 
said of war—“After all our boasted cizilization, we are 
little advanced from the cave man who stood over his 
possessions with a club and murdered anyone who dared 
touch them." The only difference is that we have more 




MODERN THESES 


117 


efficient ways of killing—on a wholesale scale in war— 
which John Wesley said was “the sum total of all vil- 
lianies. ,, 

After destructive war, in its horrible murder-mill, 
has finished many of the flower of our youth, sensible 
men get together and seek to adjust matters by reason, 
which, had not passion been appealed to instead of rea¬ 
son, might have been adjusted, (if God had been taken 
into account and trusted) before the terrible slaughter 
of our splendid youth. 

However, it is well always to keep in mind that 
world betterment is not the Christian’s mission, but 
rather, a gathering out of a people for His Name. 

“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed” has not been revoked so far as the world is 
concerned. Capital punishment is scriptural (Old Tes¬ 
tament) for the taking of life. The Word of God says to 
the Christian, “There shall be wars and rumors of wars 
—see that ye be not troubled.” No “Peace Conference” 
will put an end to war for “When they shall say peace 
and safety, sudden destruction shall come upon them.” 
The Christian has a different hope—he is looking for 
the soon coming of the “Prince of Peace” to abolish war 
and to bring in the reign of pe»ce. 

THE CRIME OF PROFITEERING 

Crime? Yes, several crimes are covered in the one 
term. The Profiteer is a thief, because a thief is one 
who has in his possession that which belongs to another, 
or who takes that which belongs to another. Well for 
these thieves that self-incrimination is not necessary, and 
fortunate for the penal institutions as well. 





118 


MODERN THESES 


I am reminded of a statement an evangelist ma le ia 
a certain church—“If all the adulterers in this church 
were suddenly to arise and make for the door, there 
would be such a jam that no one could get out.” That 
would certainly be the plight of the penal institutions, 
only the jam would be so great that no one could get in. 

It matters not under what pretext the thief takes 
that which is another’s. He may call his stealing or 
hold-up work, shrewd financiering, or keen business in¬ 
sight, or believe that he is a ‘‘Captain of Industry”. If, 
unjustly in the sight of God and man, he has what is 
not his own, and that which is not made thru his own 
hard work of brain or brawn, he is a thief. His pretext 
may be car shortage or business necessity or the law of 
demand and supply, but keen observers know that they 
are but inventions to justify his crime. 

This subtle form of legalized stealing, or at least 
permitted stealing (and yet lawyers tell us that it is a 
crime to conceal a crime) even bestows upon its perpe¬ 
trator a reputation as a successful business man who is 
heralded in the leading magazines as the type of success 
to stir the ambitions of the youth of the land. But there 
is a terrible word of God spoken against him.—“He that 
maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” (R. V. 
—go unpunished”)—Proverbs 28 : 20 . 

What is termed “getting ahead in the world” is 
based upon the accumulation of that which is left be¬ 
hind when leaving the world. The strenuous effort t j 
get on “Easy Street” causes such anxiety that it inca¬ 
pacitates one for the enjoyment of that fictitious street, 
which, like the mirage, is ever receding, as dees strenu¬ 
ous labor to make a living and to provide for the pos- 




MODERN THESES 


119 


sible “rainy day”, often kill the capacity to enjoy life. 

Caruso said, “Great men often have greater respon¬ 
sibilities than the rewards of their labors and long for 
the freedom of those who worship at their shrine.” 

It is said that the multimillionaire rarely ever 
smiles. Study the facial expression of the owner of the 
great department store as he goes from department to 
department; every lineament of his countenance regis¬ 
tering vividly the terrific pressure within. What mone¬ 
tary reward can compensate for the strain under which 
he lives? What a caricature is life, if gold, rather than 
God, is its greatest goal! 












MODERN THESES 


121 


Errors of Leaders—Evangelistic Malpractice 

CHAPTER X 
ERRORS OF LEADERS 

“We must not be afraid to point out the errors in 
the leaders of the Reformation: we do not pay them 
honors like those which Rome pays to its saints; we 
defend neither Calvin nor Luther, but only Christ and 
His (Word,” wrote D’Aubigne. 

“Neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man living, says 
Luther, “has the authority to impose the least thing on 
a Christian, without his own consent; all that is done 
without it is an act of tyranny. We are free from all 
men.” 

Sentiments like the foregoing we heartily approve 
when applied to the abuses and usurpations of the Dark 
Ages! But they also apply to any and all encroach¬ 
ments whatever on the soul’s liberty. In every age, all 
churches and pastors of whatever name or pretensions 
that fail to give us the Bread of Life are reprehensible 
in the eyes of God and unworthy the confidence and tri¬ 
bute of tho people, unless they repent. The true shep¬ 
herd of Christ’s people is over them in the Lord; 
appointed to minister to the flock of God; over which 
the Holy Ghost (not Conferences, Synods or Assem¬ 
blies) has made him overseer, only as they are led by 
the Holy Ghost, and his chief reward shall be at Christ’s 
coming when the crown for faithful shepherding shall be 
awarded him. Let the true shepherd feed the flock will- 




122 


MODERN THESES 


ingly, not of constraint or for reward, and he will find 
that they will cease to roam into other folds. 

The Roman Hierarchy permitted the Bible to be 
preached, but only according to the interpretation of the 
church. Is not this being repeated in our day? Must 
not the young preacher fit into the doctrinal moulds of 
the day although his faith in the Bible is shattered by 
so doing? And is he not judged by the trueness with 
which he rings to these shibboleths? Four-fold, three¬ 
fold, two-fold, one-fold or seven-Fold? What is the dif¬ 
ference between Rome thinking for us, handing the 
result to us ready-made, or New York City, or any other 
church-headquarters, city or school? 

“Another phase—as regards the relation of Christian 
workers one with the other. It is an easier matter for 
a religious leader to write to an experienced worker and 
ask him to “come and share with us the faith principle”, 
than, after his arrival, really share what funds the Lord 
sends in. It is much easier, for instance, to place him at 
a separate table, where the food is not so dainty or abun¬ 
dant, and to pass on to him the strenuous labor during 
the heat of summer, while we repair to the ocean and put 
up at an expensive hotel where (we make ourselves be¬ 
lieve) we are at a distinct advantage in ministering to 
the needs of the class of people who will add most glory 
to our cause, if we can but obtain a listening ear. This 
may be done, theoretically, to keep the worker properly 
humble, but, as the head of a Bible School in the West 
said before a large Sunday afternoon audience, “What 
injustice is done under the guise of training Christian 
workers. Let us trust God to keep His workers humble, 




MODERN THESES 


123 


and keep our hands off, except so far as we humble our¬ 
selves that we may be exalted. ,, 

Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer, is an illustration of 
that solemn truth that no matter how useful a man may 
have been to God and His cause, He never hesitates to 
lay him aside when he fails to serve His purpose. 
Zwingle was destroyed by the greatness of his strength 
to lead. By this dangerous power he led the Lord’s poor 
sheep to slaughter in war. But God reigns and He will 
punish the man who turns aside from His way. Zwingle 
must suffer for wielding that which God has forbidden 
His servants to wield—the sword. The helmet had cov¬ 
ered his head and he had grasped the halberd. He was 
killed on the field of battle, his body was quartered and 
burned with swine’s flesh. Thus ended the inconceiv¬ 
able infatuation with which he had been seized; which 
led him to forget that our warfare is not carnal. But 
no man lives to himself and Zwingle influenced many 
of his fellows, against conscience, to follow him rather 
than Christ’s Word. Thus leadership has its dangers 
as well as its benefits. God has protected us against 
this danger by prohibiting us to follow the multitude to 
our hurt, and the true leader is to be followed only as 
he himself follows Christ and His Word. 

God has sometimes to remove leaders and wither 
their influence to draw men’s attention to Himself the 
Great Leader of His people. After Zwingle’s death, 
“many of Zurich were agitated by conviction from on 
High for their crime. They came to themselves; recov¬ 
ered from the strange nightmare, broke away from the 
false infatuation, acknowledged their error and sin in 
deserting spiritual weapons for carnal; they were now or 




124 


MODERN THESES 


a contrite heart and humble spirit. They arose, went to 
their Father, confessed and were forgiven their sin. In 
those days there was great mourning in Zurich.” 

Paul once sat at the feet of a prominent religious 
leader, Gamaliel and was indoctrinated in six hundred 
and thirteen Pharisaical traditions, but he would never, 
after his deliverance thru the heavenly vision of Christ, 
trust himself to human leaders. And when he was in 
Jerusalem, Peter, James and John, who seemed to be 
pillars, added nothing to Paul. How could they, when 
he had directly communicated with the Lord Jesus, the 
Head of the Church! 

'When David would enumerate the people, contrary 
to the will of God, Joab remonstrated with the king: 
“But, my lord, the King, are they not all my lord’s serv¬ 
ants? Why then doth my lord require this thing? Why 
will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?” For the King’s 
words were abominable to Joab. Twenty thousand fell 
in Israel for blindly following a mistaken leader! When 
the effects of mistaken leadership fall on the people, the 
people should repudiate all the false ambitions of their 
leaders. The Lord’s displeasure was on David and his 
subjects. 

When our church leaders make a jest of our soul’s 
good, mechanically draw their breath and their pay and 
look only after their own interests and ambitions, it is 
time for the laymen to have the salvation of men at 
heart. 

“All false opinions, all errors, all disputes, arise 
solely from not studying the Scriptures with sufficient 
care. Never consider who the person may be that speaks 
to you, but examine whether they speak the words of 




MODERN THESES 


125 


God or their own words; and provided the Scripture and 
not the authority of man be your rule, you will not fail 
to discover the path of duty.” “These (the Bereans) 
were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they 
searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were 
so.” 


EVANGELISTIC MALPRACTICE 

A character under our observation we will call old 
Scrooge, goes to the distant city to attend the great 
Hippodrome Revival. Everybody is going forward, 
why not he? It is the proper thing to do, so down the 
saw-dust trail he trudges and shakes the hand of the 
great evangelist and returns, perhaps mopping a sur¬ 
face tear, complimenting himself that he has done a 
noble thing. 

Ere long he starts toward home with high resolves 
to do better. But, alas! The disillusionment! He can¬ 
not do better until he is made better by divine power 
thru faith in what Jesus did and not in what he does! 
The nearer home he gets and the further from the mob 
psychology spell, the more deeply conscious is he that 
he did not grasp the hand of God when he shook the 
hand of the evangelist, and that the saw-dust trail and 
the glory trail were not the same! He knows that his 
poor miserly heart is unchanged. His great need is not 
touched. He is the same old Scrooge! He realizes the 
sham of the process he had gone through when his poor 
wife, hopeful that the move had changed him, asks him 
for needed money. The same old miserly tempest is in 
his soul! In a fit of selfish passion, he refuses her the 




126 


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necessaries of life! And in self-protection she must get 
an injunction from the court against him, compelling 
him to give her support, his own wife, under his own 
roof! 

The pastor receives 'by return mail, the card 
announcing the glad news that Scrooge has been con¬ 
verted. He hastens to congratulate him and is bold to 
ask the supposed convert for money for the lagging 
benevolence of the church, but Scrooge refuses him too. 

Oh, why do men prefer religious humbugging, and 
pay for it too in large figures, to regeneration’s trans¬ 
forming power? How much better is no revival than a 
spurious one, and no converts than perverts! Is not 
religious mal-practice as criminal as medical mal-prac- 
tice? Is it not more so in proportion to the duration of 
the Divine penalty? 




MODERN THESES 


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Pharisaism and the Unpardonable Sin 

CHAPTER XI 

The Unpardonable Sin is not the sin ol murder, as 
Moses, David and Paul were all the takers of life directly 
or indirectly, and yet they were, thru infinite grace, 
transformed into eminent saints; one the law giver, 
another a man after God’s own heart, and an apostle. 
When the Bible says that no murderer hath eternal life 
abiding in him, it means no unrepentant murderer. 
Not only have many actual murders been forgiven, but 
numerous ones who have harbored hate, its equivalent, 
for—“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” 

Likewise, the unpardonable sin is not stealing, as 
the thief on the cross was freely forgiven. It is not 
adultery for there are several instances in the Gospels 
where the Lord forgave freely those guilty of this sin in 
act with numerous instances where it has been forgiven 
when committed in thought. And so on thru the entire 
list of what are called gross or overt acts of sin with the 
violation of all the sins enumerated in the decalogue; 
collectively or singly, they do not constitute specifi¬ 
cally what the Bible means by the Unpardonable Sin. 
Though, of course, any or all of these sins may persist 
until, as we shall see, they become equivalent to the 
Unpardonable Sin and the loss of the soul. In other 
words, one might as well deliberately commit the un¬ 
pardonable sin as to persist in any one form of sin. 

The specific definition of the unpardonable sin, as 
the name indicates, is sin in such aggravated form that 
it is impossible for God to forgive it; it is a sin for which 




128 


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there is no pardon; either in this age, the age of Christ’s 
ministry, or the age to come (the Millenial Age). The 
Authorized Version reads—“either in this world or in the 
world to come”, but the proper translation of the Greek 
word is “Age”. 

Many conscientious souls have been tormented by 
the devil into thinking that they have committed this 
sin, when they do not even know what the sin is. Let 
us have the answer in Jesus’ own words. The account 
of the unpardonable sin is given by the Lord Jesus in 
the twelfth chapter of Matthew, particularly verses 
twenty-one to forty-two. Parallel passages are found in 
Luke 12:10, etc. In getting a complete view of the 
causes which led up to the commission of this sin by the 
Pharisees, it will pay us to read Matthew 11:28 to 
Matthew 12:42. And it will be helpful to recall the 
Master’s promise of rest in connection with all the hor¬ 
rible bondage of Pharisaism. 

Many regard the unpardonable sin as the attributing 
to a Satanic source what is done by the Slpirit of God; 
but the Lord Jesus surrounds His teaching on the un¬ 
pardonable sin with other soul-damning sins so that 
those who have not committed the specific sin of calling 
Him the Prince of Devils and who have not said that 
the spirit by which He worked was Satan’s, but who still 
persist in the other forms of sin, which He mentions, 
may see that their peril of being unforgiven or lost is 
just as great if they persist in any one form of sin, and 
amounts to the same ultimately, as though the direct 
unpardonable sin was committed, namely the loss of the 
soul. So that one might as well say that Jesus had a 
devil as to persist in any sin. The specific unpardonable 





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129 


sin is rarely committed by sinners. It is the sin of the 
religious, but spiritually dead Pharisee and his descen¬ 
dants. Matthew 11:28-30 and 12:1-50. 

There are rare instances mentioned in the New Tes¬ 
tament of the salvation of a Pharisee; Joseph,of Arima- 
thea, Nicodemus and Paul are the outstanding cases. 
The Lord regarded the salvation of publicans and har¬ 
lots as hopeful compared to theirs. But the things which 
are impossible with men are possible with God, even the 
salvation of this difficult class. The rescue from the 
meshes of Pharisaism is so exceptional that the Master 
frequently warns His disciples to beware of the leaven 
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 

We will point out some of the outstanding charac¬ 
teristics of Pharisaism and then endeavor to show their 
relation to the Unpardonable Sin. 

Pharisaism’s origin is credited to Satan in his 
attempted exaltation of himself above the Most High.— 
Isa. 14:13:14. Here is the germ of all self-righteous¬ 
ness—“I will exalt myself above”. Jesus had, doubtless, 
this passage in mind when he charged the Pharisees with 
being of their father the devil, who set his will against 
the will of the Most High.—“His lusts ye will do.” He 
was a renegade from the truth and abode not in the 
truth, he refused to submit to God; and the Jews, being 
ignorant of the righteousness of God, went about to 
establish their own righteousness, thus following Satan’s 
lead who had said—“I will exalt myself above the throne 
of the Most High.” Sin thus has its origin in an act ot 
self-will and it is perpetuated by the human will cross¬ 
ing the will of God. 

The Pharisees, true to their satanic ancestry, had a 




130 


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wrong direction for their volitional powers. “Ye will 
not come to Me that ye might have life. ,, They would 
not submit themselves to God’s righteousness but sought 
to produce it by their own works, which led them ulti¬ 
mately into the first characteristic of Pharisaism we 
shall mention:— 

Irrevocable Self-Righteousness —irrevocable because 
although God longed to melt their stony heart and Jesus 
could weep over them and yearn to gather them as a hen 
her brood, under iHis Divine Wing, yet there is some¬ 
thing so hardening and blinding about self-righteousness 
that its victims rarely ever see and repent of it. When 
doing so much to save themselves it is difficult to see 
how they should look to Another, namely to Christ, the 
Righteousness of God, looking away entirely from self 
and all of its activities to the Cross of Christ, which 
exposes Satan’s false righteousness by works. 

Irrevocably Wrong Direction of Volition: —“Ye 
would not be gathered unto Me.” 

Irrevocable Exaltation of Self: —in the ultimate 
choice of the wilful king. “If another come in his own 
name, him ye will receive,” referring primarily to Anti- 
Christ who will sit in the temple of God claiming that he 
is God, thus exalting himself above the authority of God: 
In the effort to establish their own righteousness rather 
than in submissiveness to God’s plan of “The Lord our 
righteousness”; in their 'braggadocio about their worth¬ 
less righteousness by works—“God I thank thee that I 
am not as other men;” I fast; I pray; I give alms; I 
tithe; I am not like this publican. This is the dominant 
note of self-righteousness wherever found: “I will exalt 
myself above the Most High.” Myself above! My 




MODERN THESES 


131 


movement above! My Church above! My theories 
above! My demonstrations above! My opinions above! 
My judgment above! but we forbear to mention more 
and stop to record the words of the meek and lowly 
Jesus, the Son of Man, who made Himself of no repu¬ 
tation and emptied Himself: “Whosoever exalteth him¬ 
self shall be abased and whoso humbleth himself shall be 
exalted.” 

With this irrevocable self-righteousness is also seen 
an impenetrable self-complacency and satisfaction mani¬ 
fested in irrevocable irresponsiveness to all the appeals 
of the Son of God. How fearful is the insensibility of 
the dead soul when the wisdom and love of Jehovah 
cannot arouse it from its self-chosen delusion! And 
how terrible is a free moral agency which chooses self 
rather than the Lord for its God! The Pharisees resisted 
all the prophets who told before of the coming of the 
Just One; John the Baptist was the Elijah which was 
for to come (of whom Elijah was the ante-type) whom 
the Jews believed was to come before Messias came, and 
they said he had a devil. God’s own Son they took with 
wicked hands and nailed Him to the tree; Stephen they 
stoned to death. Jesus said that the Pharisees, in their 
irresponsiveness to all the overtures God made for their 
deliverance from self-righteousness, reminded him of the 
custom of the children in the market-places, calling unto 
their fellows and saying, “We have piped unto you and 
ye have not danced, (or responded as the custom was 
when they piped) we have mourned unto you and ye 
have not lamented,” (beaten upon their breasts in imi¬ 
tation of the hired mourners of those days).—Matthew 
11:16, 17. 




132 


MODERN THESES 


Then, for the same sin of irresponsiveness, He be¬ 
gan to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty 
works were done. At Chorazin, Bethsaida and Caper¬ 
naum, especially, he had bared His mighty arm of power, 
and yet they resisted, and He stated that even Sodom (a 
name synonymous with the vilest depravity, meriting 
God’s fiery judgments’ already a city of four thousand 
years in hell) will not have the degree of torment that 
will the other cities mentioned, whose penalty for reject¬ 
ing so much greater light will be such that Sodom’s lot 
will be far preferable. So fearful is the sin of indiffer¬ 
ence to the appeals of Christ. The men of Nineveh 
would, too, condemn the men of His generation, because 
they repented at the preaching of one far inferior to 
Christ, and the Queen of the South was commended for 
responding to the wisdom of Solomon; while the Phari¬ 
sees had not been interested in the very wisdom of God, 
manifested in Christ. This is approximating the unpar¬ 
donable sin—a stolid indifference to every appeal of God 
in Christ. 

Irrevocable unreasonableness and contrariness, evi¬ 
denced in fault-finding, is another outstanding mark of 
Pharisaism. With the Pharisee, a day, a tradition, a cus¬ 
tom, an ear of corn and shew bread, and the temple, were 
more important than God manifest in the flesh, the Son 
of Man in whom dwelt all the fulness of the God-Head 
bodily! The Pharisee finds fault with Jesus for going 
thru the corn-field on the Sabbath Day and plucking and 
eating the ears of corn, which he did to sustain His life 
and the lives of the disciples. The Pharisees found fault 
with Jesus before and after He healed the withered hand 
in the Synagogue; before, they watched Him to see if 




MODERN THESES 


133 


He dared violate their tradition about healing on the 
Sabbath Day, which forbade it unless the patient were 
about to die; after, they took counsel how they might 
destroy Him. They thought more of the blinding and 
binding legalism in the observance of tradition’s letter 
than of bestowing mercy to suffering men on the Sab¬ 
bath Day. Satan, as the god of this world, had so 
blinded them that they could not see that a man was 
better than a sheep; that if they could deliver an ox or 
an ass from the pit on the Sabbath Day, or lead them 
to water, that a man was more worthy of being min¬ 
istered to, forasmuch as he was made in the image of 
God, though marred by sin. “Don’t desecrate the day”, 
they said. Jesus said that it was lawful to do good on 
the Sabbath Day and that He was Lord of the day and 
greater than the day, which was His own creation. The 
Sabbath was made for man—not man for the Sabbath. 
Oh, heartless, blind, Pharisaism! Let the man die, but 
preserve the day from defilement or desecration! 

Jesus taught that the man was dearer to God than 
an exact observance of the day. We may yet make so 
much of days that we lose the spirit of Jesus, while con¬ 
tending for their proper observance. The spasmodic, 
seasonal giving at Christmas-time is foreign to His spirit 
of perennial benevolence; Easter’s fashion-parade has no 
relation to Him whom the world hated, neither to his 
true disciples who love not the world neither the things 
which are in the world. 

What hardness of heart is that which will endeavor 
to kill or greatly hinder a man’s influence because he does 
a work of healing, without perhaps our exact formula; 
that would stone him to death for his many good works ? 




134 


MODERN THESES 


After Christ healed the man who had the withered hand, 
the unreasonable Pharisees took counsel together how 
they might destroy Him. It is inevitable, if He is right, 
then they are terribly wrong! “This man doeth many 
miracles, what do we?” “If we let Him alone, the 
Romans will come and take our city.” They cannot let 
Him alone because He is the personification of Good¬ 
ness and they are the personification of evil, and the 
false must oppose the true. 

When Christ cast out a devil, the Pharisees con¬ 
tinued their life-long habit of fault-finding: they could 
find no explanation but that He hath a devil Himself 
and casts out Beelzebub because He is the Prince of 
devils. Doing what Christ did was inevitable, being 
what He was, and since they could do no such miracles, 
they must discredit His. 

Some of them said, ‘IHe is a good man but all the 
more dangerous because He is not straight on tradition.” 
—He was Holy but not “Holiness”; He heals but does 
not see it as we do; He casts out devils but does not 
follow with us; He is acquainted with letters but he is 
self-educated—Christ ever, in His teaching, labors to 
show that the Pharisee’s conception of religion and His 
were entirely different: in other words that they were 
endeavoring to merit salvation by the works of the law, 
which works they were unable to fulfill, and were never 
meant to fulfill, as it was given as a “school-master to 
bring them to Christ;” in other words, to make them 
realize their total inability to do anything of themselves 
apart from Christ Jesus. 

That, my friends, is the battle ahead of us today—so 
to exalt Jesus Christ that false religions will be exposed 




MODERN THESES 


135 


by His true light. We must clearly demonstrate by life 
and teaching that much so-called Christianity of the 
Twentieth Century, is not the Christianity Jesus Christ 
and the apostles lived and taught. The great need or 
our day is the conversion of men to Jesus Christ and not 
to a religious profession. Jesus said—“I came not to 
call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Someone 
recently said, in commenting on the lack of response to 
a stirring appeal in a large audience for men to come 
forward and accept Christ—“The trouble today is that 
too much time is spent by evangelists in calling the 
righteous (instead of sinners) to repentance—” in other 
words, the self-righteous, those who do not see their 
need, though they may have heard the gospel again and 
again. 

How much fault-finding there is among us! A gnat 
is often strained at and a camel swallowed. How often 
the servant of God, with satanic pressure on every hand, 
is the victim; his every movement criticised! Oh, how 
much he needs prayer! But it is the way the Master 
went and shall not His servants tread it still? 

The Pharisee is contrary and unreasonable—it is 
as easy to reason with a devil or a stone as with him. 
John, the Baptist, came neither eating or drinking and 
they said that he had a devil; Jesus came eating and 
drinking (in moderation) and they said He was a glut¬ 
ton and a wine-bibber; how much inward darkness, with 
such numerous external religious activities, can co-exist 
with a persistent profession of seeing, is too complex for 
the finite mind. 

Irrevocable unmercifulness while zealously pursu¬ 
ing the externals of religion, is another prominent Phar- 




136 


MODERN THESES 


isaical characteristic. Jesus rebuked them for their for¬ 
mal sacrifices, performed while they harbored a hard, 
unmerciful spirit, and which were followed by no acts of 
mercy to mankind. “I will have mercy and not sacri¬ 
fice.The merciful, who seeks the highest good of the 
offender, as does God, shall have mercy. The extension 
of mercy is regarded as a sin by the Pharisees. Allied 
to unmercifulness is the condemnation of the guiltless: 
“But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have 
mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned 
the guiltless.” They revered the day, the tradition, the 
corn, etc., and they wanted to make Christ guilty for 
violating their traditions in mercifully healing a suffer¬ 
ing man on the Sabbath, regardless of the fact that He 
was Lord of the Sabbath and Lord of Creation, and 
that He had the right to walk thru the fields of His own 
creation and pluck and eat the corn; that He was greater 
than the temple and that it was constructed from the 
materials of His own creation. They overlooked the 
fact that in an emergency of hunger David and they that 
were with him went into the House of God and ate the 
shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor 
they that were with him, but only for the priests: and 
yet another instance in which the priests in the temple 
profaned the temple and were guiltless, and “shall not 
He who is greater than all” heal a man on the day of 
His own creation, and in a Temple solemnly dedicated 
to Him? 

They made the observance of the letter of the law 
of more import than the mercy. But Jesus reversed the 
order and said—“I will have mercy.” “Blessed are the 
merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” 




MODERN THESES 


137 


The Bible commends discretion but not unforgive¬ 
ness of indiscretion. This type of discretion is more un¬ 
like Jesus than the indiscretion. The purity of the 
church is not guarded by unmercifulness, like the treat¬ 
ment of the lapsed in the church of the first centuries, 
which, under a false conception of discipline, made them 
impose unwarranted conditions upon the lapsed for res¬ 
toration, requiring in some instances, as much as three 
years to lapse before full restoration. But Christ im¬ 
posed no such conditions. “There is one mediator be¬ 
tween God and man—the Man Christ Jesus.” The early 
church and the Roman church imposed themselves be 
tween the man and God, and the modern church often 
does the same. Presumptuous sin is to be avoided, but, 
“If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, 
and He is the propitiation for our sins”—and immed¬ 
iately forgives our confessed sins without the medium of 
a confessional, priest, preacher, evangelist, altar or camp¬ 
meeting or revival, a waiting-time, or tears. “He re- 
storeth my soul” immediately upon the recognition of 
the need and the acceptance of the Propitiation. 

The Pharisees were especially unmerciful towards 
certain forms of outward sin, while they covered up 
secret sin as repugnant to God as the sins they so con¬ 
temptuously denounced. For example, they were covet¬ 
ous and derided Jesus for rebuking them for this sin 
which as effectually shuts the soul out from the king¬ 
dom of heaven as adultery; indeed it is a deeper sin, a 
sin so respectable often in the eyes of men that one may 
have a reputation for success and gain great publicity 
from its fruit, while the other sin is of the flesh. The 
Master regarded the salvation of the adulteress as hope- 




138 


MODERN THESES 


ful compared to that of the covetous Pharisee. There 
was a quicker consciousness of the other sin than the 
subtle sin of the spirit. The Pharisee wanted to stone 
the adulteress; but by their custom of putting away a 
woman for every cause and marrying again shortly 
thereafter, they were legalized adulterers. A keen mod¬ 
ern observer said that the looseness and laxity of our 
American divorce laws amounted to legalized adultery. 
If one go through the regular legal procedure of securing 
a divorce for less cause than adultery he may marry 
again and be welcomed into good society as it is termed, 
because the sin is committed in a way approved of men, 
though condemned of God, but a bigamist who does not 
wait for the legal procedure to take its course, is arrested 
for the crime which thousands, according to the teach¬ 
ings of Christ, are committing in the regular and so- 
called respectable way. This is one of the latter day 
satanic characteristics of the deceivableness of unright¬ 
eousness by which men and women find legal ways of 
rejecting the law of God, while claiming rightness with 
God thru identification with the Church. Simon, the 
Pharisee, holds Christ’s prophetic claim in contempt be¬ 
cause he seemed not to discern the character of the 
woman weeping at His feet, and he despises the fallen 
but penitent woman; but Christ reverses the order and 
holds Simon’s discourteous and contemptuous treatment 
of His guest up to scorn and extends mercy and for¬ 
giveness to the woman. 

No matter how sinful men and women have been, if 
they are truly penitent and we yet hold in contemptuous 
scorn those who need pity and forgiveness, it is akin to 
Pharisaism. We readily pity those who are crippled in 




MODERN THESES 


139 


body but have nothing but withering scorn and condem¬ 
nation for those who are defective in soul. If Simom 
ever forgave the woman, which is doubtful, he would no 
doubt have demanded that she go thru endless cere¬ 
monies of purification, but Jesus forgives her immed¬ 
iately upon repentance and faith; and He commands his 
disciples to treat the fallen who repent exactly as He 
did. The accusers are more guilty than the accused, and 
the great peril of an unforgiving spirit is with its posses¬ 
sor. Jesus does not seem to regard the peril of one who 
has sinned and yet returns seven times in a day to his 
brother and repents, as great as that of the brother who 
is exasperated at the sinner. There is in the spirit of 
the Pharisee who cannot forgive, something utterly for¬ 
eign and at variance with the compassion and mercy of 
Christ. 

'“If thy brother trespass against thee forgive him; 
and if he trespass against thee seven times in a day and 
say ‘I repent’, thou shalt forgive him.” It is suggestive 
that Jesus introduces this incident by telling the dis¬ 
ciples to take heed to themselves!—as though in an atti¬ 
tude of unforgiveness, they were in as great danger, or 
greater, than he who trespassed, for if he repents he is 
forgiven. “How the thought of our great salvation thru 
Jesus Christ ought to melt our hearts to forgive our 
brother, for the appeal thru grace is that because we 
have been forgiven we ought to forgive one another.” 

Irrevocable small-mindedness, pettiness, narrow¬ 
ness, small souledness and unfairness, afflict the Phari¬ 
see. Small talk, small acts, and narrow, unfair, one¬ 
sided judgments come from small, selfish souls. Petti¬ 
ness, manifested in speck-mongering, watching ever 




140 


MODERN THESES 


with the eagle eye for the bit of divergence from the 
established tradition of the elders, for each little devia¬ 
tion from the jots and tittles and the iota subscripts of 
their law, lying in wait that they might catch something 
from His speech that they might accuse Him, flaw- 
hunters they were, picking to pieces and nagging—when 
a sour Pharisee gets thru picking his victim, a singed 
chicken is a beautiful sight in comparison. 

Pharisaism is thus, in its relation to the unpardon¬ 
able sin, a series of preliminary steps which prepares 
the way for the committing of the unpardonable sin. 

Such is Pharisaism: a hard, unmerciful, unsympa¬ 
thetic spirit, a legalism destitute of all mercy to 
offenders; a rigid traditionalism, which is more con¬ 
cerned about deviation from its binding exactions than 
acts of mercy to suffering mankind; which thinks more 
of ritualistic temple worship and form than of the One 
to whom the temple was dedicated; a hard spirit which 
would let Jesus and His disciples starve rather than see 
them as they thought, desecrate the Sabbath by pluck¬ 
ing and eating the corn. Jesus tried to teach them that 
it was more important to save the man than the corn 
or the day’s exact observance. Paul said that this legal¬ 
istic observance and magnifying of days by the Christian 
was the same as being fallen from grace. 

The Pharisee is not for Christ, which is equivalent 
to being against Him. He commits blasphemy in the 
true sense of the word—talking sanctimoniously while 
his heart is bad, which is contrary to the law of nature 
which causes the bad tree to bring forth bad fruit and 
the good tree good fruit; they were at heart vipers, yet 
they talked as though they were good. This is the Bible 




MODERN THESES 


141 


use of the word blasphemy, i. e., pretending to be what 
we are not. “I know the blasphemy of them who say 
they are Jews and are not.” The store-box man does not 
properly blaspheme—he is what he is—he curses and 
swears publicly. But blasphemy is the sin, primarily, of 
the professor, and has the element of secrecy in it; it is 
hypocrisy, to claim to be what we are not; to claim to 
be holy when we are not; to claim to be right with God 
when we are not; to claim to have victory when we 
have it not; to claim rightness with God when certain 
things are covered up, hidden in heart and life. It was 
in connection with the teaching of Jesus on the blas¬ 
phemy against the 'Holy Ghost that Jesus warned to 
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypo¬ 
crisy, then He immediately described the things covered 
up, hidden. Ah, my friend, to claim to be right with 
God and at the same time to have things covered up, is 
to commit the sin of blasphemy. “I know the blasphemy 
of them Who say they are Jews and are not.” 

Irrevocable antagonism to Jesus in all of His words 
and works and movements—hounding his every step, 
hindering and opposing Him in every way and never 
satisfied until the Person whom they hated is nailed to 
the tree—this is Pharisaism. Essentially evil, it must 
hate the good. Antagonizing Jesus, they must hate the 
Holy Spirit within Him and commit the unpardonable 
sin of saying that He is animated by the spirit of Beel¬ 
zebub in casting out devils. 

They professed goodness while their hearts were 
evil and hardened in their hatred of goodness as mani¬ 
fested in Christ; claiming to be the only representatives 
of God, they hated Him whom God sent in His express 




142 


MODERN THESES 


image; changing the established order everywhere in 
the universe that like brings forth like, good trees bear¬ 
ing good fruit and bad trees bad fruit, “They being evil 
spoke good things.” 

They were also given to irrevocable covetousness, a 
prominent characteristic of the Jews, called by Jehovah, 
“the iniquity of covetousness” and hated and derided 
Jesus for reproving them for it. “The Pharisees which 
were covetous, derided Him.” The multitudinous ex¬ 
ternal religious activities were powerless to break the 
power of selfishness in them; indeed all false religions 
have this ear-mark, powerlessness to break the power 
of sin! 

Finally, they had an irrevocable conceit of wisdom 
and understanding of God whom Jesus said they knew 
not. He thanked God for hiding the true wisdom from 
them and revealing it to babes, not by knowledge or 
wisdom of the world which knew not God, but by Divine 
revelation. “Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.” 
The Master gives His solemn word about the idle words 
which men speak, and the solemn holding to account 
therefor in the judgment day in connection with the 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, for in them there is 
often the profession without the possession; this is the 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost for it makes God a 
liar. 




MODERN T HE S E S 


143 


The Burning Message of Christ's Forerunner 

CHAPTER XII 

John, the Baptist, was a unique character: he came 
on the scene of earth’s activities at a unique time, 
preached in a unique place, to a unique audience, a uni¬ 
que message. 

As to his unequaled character, an expert in charac¬ 
ter reading said that among all that were born of women 
there had not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. 
He was fearless, courageous, bold, daring. His enemy, 
Herod, bore witness to his character as fear-producing 
because of its holiness and justice. Jdhn was God’s un¬ 
impeachable witness. They say that every man has his 
price—not so John; he was the voice of no party or shib¬ 
boleth : he was the voice of One crying in the wilderness; 
he expounded no doctrinal formulae and harped on no 
narrow hobby, but called all to repentance in prepara¬ 
tion for the Coming One; he called the devotees of sys¬ 
tems to follow a Person. He was the voice of God, ever 
ringing true to Him and exalting Him who was to fol¬ 
low. One translation tells us that for this purpose John 
the Baptist existed that he might bear witness to the 
coming One. Is there any more noble purpose for any¬ 
one’s existence? The Angel gave testimony to the 
greatness of his character—-“'For he shall be great in the 
sight of the Lord,” (where true greatness is properly 
estimated). 

John was great in his self-effacement. He turned 
many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 
when he had many chances to turn them to himself as 




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a great prophet, or even as the Messiah; he kept himself 
in the desert until the day of his showing to Israel. He 
was not that Light (Jesus) but was sent to bear witness 
of that Light. The true Light was Jesus which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world. When the Jews 
sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him— 
“Who art thou?” he denied that he was the Christ or 
that he was Elias, or that he was that prophet; He was 
only the voice of Another, inferior to the One who was 
to follow. My baptism is subordinate to His baptism; 
I am not worthy to unloose the shoe-latchets from His 
feet; though He comes after me, He is preferred before 
me. He encouraged his disciples to leave him and fol¬ 
low Jesus; his witness causing them to follow Christ for 
—“I must decrease and He must increase.” What a 
wonderful degree of self-effacement—would that reader 
and writer could have more of it. This was the hiding- 
place of his power. How many of us, with exalted pro • 
fessions of deeper grace, could have a praise service like 
John had when his followers left him and followed 
Christ? And how many of us would encourage them 
to hunt a ministry deeper than we could give them? If 
an audience en toto should leave the Nazarene’s to fol¬ 
low the Methodists, or if an Alliance class should go in 
a body to join the holiness propaganda or the Pentecos¬ 
tal people, or an entire Baptist church go over in a body 
to the Presbyterians, would there be emulation of John’s 
example, a praise service, or bitterness? John tells them 
to follow the One greater than he, and we tell them that 
we have the best thing going. This is a searching test 
of self-effacement, which John successfully stood, tell- 
ing his converts that he and his message were inferior; 




MODERN THESES 


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that Another was superior; that he was lesser—Another 
greater; John shows self-effacement also in the message 
he preached; he did not preach himself, he was a serious 
man in the world on serious business—to preach God’s 
message. “The word of the Lord came unto John the 
son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” Oh, that all min¬ 
isters today had the courage to get their message from 
the Lord and preach the “thus saith the Lord” even 
though the modern headman’s block might be the pen¬ 
alty! Unique John the Baptist! How unlike him are 
we and thousands who call themselves by his name, and 
how little many of us know of the tremendous content of 
his mesage! 

His garb, abode, ascetic life and abstemiousness in 
eating and drinking were also unique; locusts and wild 
honey, with no strong drink lest as the old prophet 
wrote, he err. Camel’s hair, fastened with a leathern 
girdle constituted his garb. There is doubtless more 
connection between his manner of life and his tremen¬ 
dous spiritual power than we pampered, feted, ban¬ 
queted, luxury-loving, ease-seeking moderns dream. 

The time of his coming was also unique; arriving 
when for over four hundred years there had been no 
prophet’s voice speaking with authority and power for 
God; when all men were in expectation and when the 
devout were eagerly waiting for the Consolation of 
Israel. This setting added, doubtless, to the power and 
appeal of his message. 

Furthermore, the place or scene of his message was 
unique; the wilderness of Judea. A man must have 
great drawing power today to get an audience in the 
city, but John drew them from the city to the solitary 




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wilderness of Judea by the thousands; he surely solved 
the problem of getting an audience in the country; we 
would call it “Solving the Rural Problem.” Spiritual 
power is the key to an audience; something to preach 
insures someone to preach to. The size of the preacher's 
heart regulates the number of his audience, and the state 
of his inner life, the fate of his sermon. 

The audience of the wilderness preacher was also 
unique: it was composed of the leading religious people 
of the day with all the various parties—Sadducees, Phar¬ 
isees, Essenes, each thinking, in partisan blindness, that 
they were the chosen of the Lord and doubtless talking 
over their superiority en route to hear the odd preacher 
whom they said would further confirm in his message, 
the rightness of their judgment. John must have read 
their thoughts for in one of his startling sallies he said— 
“Think not to say within yourselves we have Abraham 
for our ancestor”, for it is not now a matter of ancestral 
connection or reform party connection, but of bringing 
forth fruit meet for repentance by all parties and “Every 
tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down.” 
Ah, how all our claims to superiority fade away before 
the burning words of the messenger who fears only God! 

The message is unique: being a call to repentance 
of professors of formal, fruitless and ancestral righteous¬ 
ness unto real, rugged righteousness; from seemingness 
to reality. He was preaching to Pharisees who were 
separatists and reformers, filled with a complacency that 
they were the real people of God. John ignores all their 
pretense and calls for reality. “When he saw the Phari¬ 
sees come to his baptism he cried, ‘O generation of 
vipers who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to 




MODERN THESES 


147 


come?’ ” This is indeed startling that the loftiest pro¬ 
fessors are in greatest danger of the damnation of hell! 
What the Pharisees needed and what most of us today 
need is the possession of the things which precede the 
things we profess to have! The Pharisees were claim¬ 
ing the most exalted relation with God, and John calls 
them back to the very first principles of salvation—Re¬ 
pentance, with the fruit thereof! And John demanded 
the scientific test of verification!—“Bring forth therefore 
fruit worthy of repentance.” The margin reads— 
“Answerable to amendment of life.” Don’t talk repen¬ 
tance with selfish unsu'bdued hearts and lives centered 
on self interest. 

Again let us repeat: We need the things which pre¬ 
cede what we claim to have, which is another way of 
saying we have not that which precedes rightness with 
God in the lowest degree nor that which follows this 
degree; we seem to have lost our way; this is the logical 
conclusion to the statement. Let us test this statement 
—many claim to be holy, but peace precedes holiness 
(Hebrews 12:14) and peace with all men, but do we live 
at peace among ourselves in the various divisions of the 
Higher Life Movement, or among the various divisions 
of the church? We claim the holiness which is subse¬ 
quent to the peace and yet we are full of war! Church, 
Movement, Community, World! We claim to be filled 
with the Spirit and that which precedes this is perfect 
unity; the disciples prior to the reception of the Holy 
Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, were all of one accord 
in one place before the Holy Ghost came!!! It is not 
unkind to say that those claiming that which is subse¬ 
quent to the unity, the filling of the Spirit, need sadly 




148 


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that which precedes the filling, the one-accordness and 
the one-placeness—the unity! 

Take the content of John’s message as preparatory 
to the baptism of Jesus and the conclusion is irresistable 
that many of those claiming Jesus’ baptism really need 
John’s. (Who of us have the fearless courage of John; 
who of us are free as he was from the respect of faces 
and the fear of rulers? Who of us so incisively rebuke 
the evil of plural marriage within the life-time of a living 
companion? Who of us would as readily go to the head¬ 
man’s block for loyalty of convictions, as John? Who 
of us are as dead to the world and to men, as John? 
Who of us have our bodies under the perfect control 
which he had his under? Who of us preach such a 
standard of holiness as he preached in repentance? Who 
of us practice in the deeper life, the standard he preached 
in the initial life? When we can answer these questions 
by claiming that we excel in John’s courage and mes¬ 
sage, then we can deny that our great need is the things 
which precede what we claim to have. 

Repentance or rejection is the alternative John 
offers. “Every tree therefore, which bringeth not forth 
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”—the axe 
is laid to the root of the tree—His message to the most 
advanced “professors” is a message of repentance for 
the sin of fruitlessness. The call is to “every tree”, no 
matter what the profession, John insists upon the actual 
fruit of repentance. The Chinese have a vivid expres¬ 
sion for repentance: “Sorrow and change”. John was 
like the man reputed to be from Missouri—he must be 
shown. With all the endless round of form and cere¬ 
mony and ritual and traditional observance and devotion 




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to temple and synagogue, there was no moral power 
exerted on the life to break up selfishness. So, we fear, 
is it today, that with all our whooping and shouting, 
noise and demonstration, loud praying and profession, 
emotional singing, hand-clapping and handkerchief wav¬ 
ing, marching and holding up the hand, we are not yet 
free from selfishness or self. 

John insists that if a man has repented, truly, he 
will show the change in a transition from selfishness to 
benevolence. The audience would fall back on their 
relation to the externals of the Temple as the evidence 
of their righteousness and rightness with God, but John 
said that Jehovah was tired of that and called for the 
real fruit of righteousness, or the result would be the 
penalty of being cut off (rejected) and cast out. When 
people fail to bring forth fruit unto God, He calls them 
to repentance and failing to secure that, He rejects them 
and gives the kingdom to others. 

With the fidelity and firmness of love, John sternly 
tells the divided religious parties before him that they 
are all wrong; that they have lost their way and that 
they should stop fault-finding and turn to repentance 
and fruit-bearing. Every tree—bringeth forth fruit, 
or fire! Methodist tree, Baptist tree, Presbyterian tree, 
Holiness tree, every tree. We need this message of 
John preached to the multitudinous religious parties of 
our day who all, in a measure, seek their own and not 
purely the things which are Jesus Christ’s. A general 
house-cleaning for all, and repentance of all, with its 
accompanying fruit—or fire ! The Master confirmed this 
note of his forerunner: “Every branch in me that bear- 
eth not fruit He taketh away—If a man abide not in Me 




150 


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he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men 
gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they (the 
unfruitful) are cast into the fire and burned.” Fruitful¬ 
ness is the badge of rightness with God. “Bear fruit, 
so shall ye be my disciples.” Fruitlessness always has 
lurking in the background, some unrepented sin! 
Nothing can hinder fruit except sin! 

The deeply religious, but unspiritual people, won¬ 
dered what John meant by the insinuation of selfishness, 
and asked him to explain: “And the people asked him, 
saying, ‘What shall we do then?’ He answered and 
saith unto them, ‘He that hath two coats let him impart 
unto him that hath none!’ ” This was a shocking answer 
to those who had lived self-centered lives—as though 
their fellows had no claim to their benevolence. Real 
repentance is a change from selfishness to benevolence! 
It is a hard saying—who can bear it? Not the hypo¬ 
crite, not the Pharisee, nor the one who lives in his sel¬ 
fish emotions, nor the one who substitutes Churchianity 
for Christianity. There must be a change of masters— 
from the mastership of Satan and self and the world to 
the Mastership of Jesus. “One is your Master, even 
Christ;”—“And all ye are brethren.” No one who 
makes Jesus Master, is indifferent to the interests of his 
brother. John the Baptist recognized this fact and 
called for a repentance that would think of the interests 
of our brother as well as our own; that would look not 
only on our own things but also on the things (or wel¬ 
fare) of others; hence, with him, repentance included 
impartation (under Divine guidance) of the extra coat. 
This does not mean that a man might not have two 
coats, or three or four, or as many as he needs and uses, 




MODERN THESES 


151 


or a surplus of other things, for we are commanded to 
use this world’s things (not abuse them) ; or the pos¬ 
session of whatever is essential in life or business, but 
it does mean that, with all, he recognizes the Lordship 
of Jesus and the rights of his fellows and is ever ready 
to impart the coat or aught else the Lord directs him to 
give. John continued: “He that hath meat, let him do 
likewise” (impart to the needy). The margin reads— 
“Food”—let him impart of his food to the unfortunate 
brother who lacks. 

A man may be limited in his ability to impart to 
others, but never in his willingness if he has received 
John’s message. There may be a necessary use of the 
cold storage, but there is a vast difference, for instance, 
between storing eggs from avarice and storing them 
with benevolent motive to keep the price reasonable, 
because they are scarce. Right wrongs no one and is 
not condemned by God or man. Greed has the wither¬ 
ing curse of both. One baron received a withering 
rebuke from a conscientious missionary to whom he had 
given a fifty dollar check. He took the missionary thru 
his cold-storage and calling his attention to vast stores 
of eggs, the price of which was then prohibitive, and 
said that he was holding them for a further advance. 
With blazing indignation, the missionary reached for 
the check and handed it to him, saying that if that was 
the way he got his money, by taking advantage of his 
fellows’ necessities, he did not want it. Bravo! Mis¬ 
sionary !! may God greatly multiply your kind who will 
not sell indulgences to modern sinners for ill-gotten 
money! That sanctified professor who, during the war, 
when his fellows needed food, refused three dollars a 





152 


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bushel for three thousand bushels of potatoes, grown 
from God’s seed, in God’s soil, and aided by God’s sun¬ 
shine and rain and other unknown laws of growth, hold¬ 
ing them from the market for five dollars per bushel 
price, was a potential murderer, knowing no more of the 
sanctification Christ died to provide than the Hotten¬ 
tot, and as far from the repentance leading to the im- 
partation to the need of his fellows which John the Bap¬ 
tist taught, as the East is from the West. And the 
farmer who held wheat that then was over three dollars 
a bushel, for a further advance, with which he planned 
to buy an automobile, received his just punishment 
when some pest ruined the wheat. The spirit of avarice 
in unduly hoarding needed food, which Bible repentance 
imparts, is also potential murder, for if the creatures 
from whom it is withheld should die of starvation, the 
withholders are their murderers. And the man who 
juggles the coal-market either by withholding coal or 
labor or cars or authority, is the murderer of those who 
freeze to death or contract disease from insufficient heat. 
These men are often respected members of the church 
and often they profess the highest life, yet, according to 
the rugged, fearless, God-inspired message of the Bap¬ 
tist, their imperative need is of the things which precede 
that which they profess to have; namely, the imparta- 
tion of coats, food, meat, coal, work, good wages, oil 
and money to him that hath none; and they who receive 
of their ill-gotten pelf are what the law calls partis crim- 
inis, partakers of crime. Oh, the accounting day for the 
preachers and church leaders and colleges who have 
stood by with outstretched hand for a share in the stolen 
loot! Anyone who has not the unselfish spirit of im- 




MODERN THESES 


153 


partation of that which is just and equal in all his rela¬ 
tions with men, has never repented of sin. 

What has always perplaxed the writer is where we 
come in who claim to have a baptism in advance of the 
baptism unto repentance which John preached, and yet 
who still have never had our selfishness conquered. It 
is startling, by the evidence, that we have neither John’s 
nor Jesus’ baptism. Somewhere the enemy has put a 
counterfeit over on us and until we discover and admit 
this, we will have no interest in the real. Let us examine 
further and closer. “He that hath two coats let him 
impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat (or 
food) let him do likewise.”—that is, let both divide with 
the unfortunate who have none. This is a fifty-fifty 
division. Fifty percent of all! One half! and what 
amazes us is that John asked this of the people in his 
baptism of repentance. He was not as eager to get 
members as we are, so he did not lower the standard and 
make it easy for the dear people. He would rather they 
be embarrassed with the unpleasant truth now than 
when they stand before God’s throne, so he kept back 
no truth in order to build up his own popularity. Half 
of all in initial salvation! Where do we come in who 
claim full salvation, a degree higher than the initial? 
Oh, so much higher in theory, and oh, so much lower 
often, in practice, when we squeeze out a Mormon’s one- 
tenth for the Lord; and often that not fairly computed. 
It would surely be a gain to our Higher Life to take it 
back to John in the wilderness and get the content of 
his lower life added to it. Oh, that we would stop play¬ 
ing church and playing holiness and playing Pentecosr 
and playing Victory and get down to business and really 




154 


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repent! That God would do for us what an Irish friend 
asked Him to do for him: “O, Lord, I want you to take 
away from me everything that looks like Mike!” Amen, 
O Lord, take away from us all everything that looks 
like us and let remain only that which looks like Thee! 

The servants of Jesus are a unit with Him in their 
demands of discipleship’s conditions. Finney demanded 
of those who were converted under his ministry that 
they surrender utterly everything to Jesus as Lord and 
Master, and some took him so seriously that they 
appeared before a notary public and had a Quit Claim 
Deed duly wrought and sealed in which they solemnly 
quit-claimed everything they possessed over to the Lord 
to be used as he should direct. How different was his 
spirit from Dowie’s, who had the money paid to Dowie. 

A man under terrible conviction, worth half a mil¬ 
lion dollars, came to the writer and asked what he should 
do, and our reply was (and the reply of every servant 
of God should be) “Do only what God clearly leads you 
to do.” And the Lord is a unit with His sincere serv¬ 
ants, confirming by the Spirit the Word preached—the 
hand of the Lord was with John—and preaching Him¬ 
self the same note that His loyal forerunner had 
preached. He confirms John’s preaching of repentance 
as the gateway of salvation, to the self-righteous Jews— 
by sounding the same note in His first sermon: “From 
that time Jesus began to preach and to say—‘Repent 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ” He left them 
not long in doubt as to what that repentance was to in¬ 
volve, “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all 
that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” He boldly calls 
Matthew to leave his lucrative position as Collector of 




MODERN THESES 


155 


the Port, which he forthwith does, and immediately fol¬ 
lows Jesus in the way; the fishermen who left boats, 
nets, and their established trade of supplying the Jeru¬ 
salem market with fresh fish, do not hesitate to bid 
adieu to father, equipment, and money-making business. 

Take the case of Zaccheus, the publican. At the 
sight of Jesus he gives away half of his fortune, illus¬ 
trating the statement of John in his epistle, that whoso¬ 
ever seeth Jesus sinneth not. Many of us will never lose 
our avarice and covetous selfishness until we have a 
vision of Jesus. There was something about the unsel¬ 
fish, open, benevolent, beautiful countenance of Jesus 
which so impressed Zaccheus that he could never be as 
he had been before; he saw that his whole life was 
wrongly centered in the interests of Zaccheus, no matter 
whom the oppressive juggernaut must crush to minister 
to Zaccheus’ surplus, and that henceforth his life must 
have for its center, the Man whom he saw coming down 
the road. ‘‘The half of my goods I give to the poor/* 
This was the type of convert the Master was interested 
in, those who became firebrands forthwith. The answer 
of Christ to Zaccheus is often overlooked: “This day 
salvation is come to thy house!” If as much as half was 
surrendered by Zaccheus, where is our conception wrong 
when we claim Victory, Pentecost, Healing and Sancti 
fication and the blessing received at Keswick, etc., bless¬ 
ings a degree higher than Zaccheus received, and in our 
stewardship take a backward step? If a man gives fifty 
percent when he receives the “first blessing”, he should 
surrender one hundred percent for Divine control when 
he receives the “second blessing.” 

To the publicans who came to John’s baptism, he 




156 


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said; in reply to their inquiry, “Master, what shall we 
do?”—“Exact no more than that which is appointed 
you.” Repentance for exaction! John’s rugged type of 
repentance cures a man from selfish exaction, of all 
oppression and defrauding, of all exorbitant rates of 
interest and profiteering, even where the law permits. 

The writer knows of one manufacturer who, on a 
supposed death-bed, plead with God to be allowed to 
live so that he could repay the shopmen whom he had 
robbed of living wages. Another case was that of an 
old Jewish woman who saw that her fortune had been 
made by underpaying hundreds of clerks in the great 
Department Store and she had no rest in her conscience 
until she restored several hundred thousand dollars to 
the clerks, a friend of the writer receiving a check for 
$700.00. How many swollen fortunes would shrink if 
John’s burning message on the sin of exaction could be 
heard and heeded! All these things were given “for our 
admonition on whom the end of the age has come.” 

John did not specifically preach it, yet it was so 
strongly implied that it should be given passing notice— 
Reparation—Restitution—not as a means of salvation but 
as a fruit of repentance—namely, the adjustment of all 
accounts as able and every wrong to man made right 
where possible. Then too, Separation from sin and from 
fellowship with sinners is included in his message—the 
Christian will change crowds; he will not go to many of 
the old places and do many of the old things. 

To the soldiers, John says—“Do violence to no 
man,” and some took this so literally that it is said, for 
the first three centuries of the Christian Era there were 
no Christian soldiers found in the armies; that, when sol- 




MODERN THESES 


157 


diers were converted, they frequently paid the price of 
martyrdom because of their convictions. 

Again, John said that they were to be free from 
false accusation and to be content with their wages. To 
the ruler, Herod, he ministered reproof for having his 
brother’s wife while the brother was yet alive—“It is not 
lawful for thee to have her”—in other words, if the law 
of the Romans did sanction the adulterous union, the 
law of God did not. How criminally silent are many 
pulpits today about this fearful, and ever-increasing evil 
of easy divorce and re-marriage, with America holding 
the world record! John reproved Herod for “All the 
evils he had done”. How rare today is the ministry of 
reproof! How, by our silence, we condone sin in others 
and become partakers of their sins! “Thou shalt not 
suffer sin upon thy neighbor; but thou shalt in anywise 
reprove thy neighbor, else it will be sin in thee”, wrote 
the old prophet. Again, Paul charges Timothy: “In the 
presence of God and of Christ Jesus who will judge the 
living and the dead, in the light of His appearance and 
His reign, I adjure you to preach the Word; keep at it 
in season and out of season, refuting, checking and ex¬ 
horting men; never lose patience with them, and never 
give up your teaching, for the time will come when 
people will decline to be taught sound doctrine and will 
accumulate teachers to suit themselves and tickle their 
own fancies; they will give up listening to the Truth 
and turn to myths. Whatever happens, be self-possessed, 
flinch from no suffering, do your work as an evangelist, 
and discharge all your duties as a minister.” (Moffatt’s 
translation.) How criminally silent we are, often, about 





158 


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the selfishness and sin of paying members of church, 
camp and movement! 

John’s message also contained a note of aspiration 
for a greater baptism than his, administered by the One 
coming after him—“He shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost.” And, as though the searching things enumer¬ 
ated by John were not enough, the record adds—“And 
many other things preached he in his exhortation unto 
the people.” His baptism was a baptism unto repen¬ 
tance for the remission of sins. The objective of his 
baptism was not the mode nor the element but unto 
repentance, involving the elements we have pointed out. 
There is great danger of being more enthusiastic for 
the mode of its administration than its tremendous con¬ 
tent or objective, which gives the knowledge of salva¬ 
tion by the remission of sins. 

This, in brief, is a picture of the unique wilderness 
preacher and his meteor-like, but startlingly effective 
ministry. God grant us more of his type for an age 
sunken in religious complacency! 




MODERN THESES 


159 


Justification by Newly-Invented Modern 
Methods Futile 

CHAPTER XIII 

We do not save ourselves by making confession, 
restitution, making crooked paths straight, etc. “What 
must I do to be saved ?” “The answer rings thru the 
Word of God from cover to cover; the answer rings out 
thru the universe, down thru the centuries”—(wrote a 
man who has sunk and can never repay hundreds of 
thousands of other’s money). “The instructions—re¬ 
pent, confess, restore, make crooked paths straight, for¬ 
sake.—when you have done these first things you are on 
believing ground,”—saved by getting on believing 
ground? (Nay by believing!—would be very hard in¬ 
structions for the man who has believed and has received 
grace. They are not the conditions of salvation, but 
rather the results of salvation. Requiring them as con¬ 
ditions of faith, is the same as asking a man to produce 
the fruits of saving faith before he has saving faith. 

If these are the conditions of salvation, then the 
thief on the cross was not saved, and the eleventh hour 
conversions we frequently hear of, are all false, for the 
lack of time to do these things, as a condition of faith, 
and the salvation of everybody is impossible, as all, or 
most all, have, in their lives, that which is impossible to 
adjust because of the death or loss of the trace of the 
party to whom the confession or restitution or adjust¬ 
ment is to be made. 

Strange that, crying down Romanism’s salvation by 
works, we should substitute our own. These are as 




160 


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much our works as the Romanist’s confessional or rosary 
or mass, etc. Dr. Trumbull says that the greatest mod¬ 
ern heresy is the emphasis on salvation by our doing 
works. 

He who hopes to be justified by his own power and 
merits, and not by faith in Christ’s finished work on 
Calvary, sets himself up as God. A return to the Holy 
Scriptures will bring a return to faith, for—“Faith com- 
eth by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Since 
Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith, it follows 
that we must search the Word which reveals Christ.” 

Thus wrote Farel: “It is creeping on us so at un¬ 
awares that we suspect it not; the triple delusion of 
Roman Catholicism, Meritorious Works, Human Tradi¬ 
tions and False Unity.” Rome has nothing on Protest¬ 
antism in the multiplicity of works for salvation; the 
only difference is that the name of the works is changed. 
She has nothing on us for tradition, only the traditions 
are more modern, a so-called Christian Legalism sub¬ 
stituted for the old traditionalism; and as for false 
unity, where she offers and emphasizes unity and secur¬ 
ity only within her fold, we offer the right hand of fel¬ 
lowship to our Protestant and independent churches, in 
lieu of that fellowship with God’s Son which comes only 
by faith in |His atoning sacrifice and appropriation of His 
shed blood for the remission of sin, and which is the 
only bond of true union of all believers, who are all 
united to Him by a living faith. 

“While faith in Christ’s atonement and appropria¬ 
tion of it, is the ground of the sinner’s justification, 
works are the logical result of it. 

“The word of reconciliation which the apostles 




MODERN THESES 


161 


preached as the foundation of all they taught, was that 
we are reconciled to God, not by our works, not by our 
righteousness, but wholly and solely by the death of His 
Son. 

“But, you will say, ‘must I not grieve and mourn 
for my sins? Must I not humble myself before God? Is 
not this just and right? And must I not first do this 
before I can expect God to be reconciled to me?’ The 
word says: ‘We were reconciled to God by the death of 
His Son.’ It is just and right that you be humbled 
before God; that you have a broken and contrite heart, 
but observe that this is not your own work. Do you 
grieve that you are a sinner? This is the work of the 
Holy Ghost: ‘The goodness of God leadeth thee to re¬ 
pentance/ Are you contrite? Are you humbled before 
God? Do you indeed mourn and is your heart broken 
within you? All this worketh the self same Spirit. 

“Observe again that this is not the foundation of 
your reconciliation, not by this are you justified. Jus¬ 
tification is not earned or given as a reward for our 
struggle of praying through. This is no part of the 
righteousness by which you are reconciled unto God. 
You grieve for your sins; you are humbled—well and 
good, but this does not merit your justification. Nay, 
observe further that it may even hinder justification, that 
is, if you build anything upon it; if you think I must be 
so or so contrite; I must grieve more before I can be 
justified. Understand this well; to think you must be 
more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible 
of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, or to 
think I must have more conviction before I can be jus¬ 
tified, is to make conviction the ground of justification, 




162 


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whereas conviction is what we have because we delay 
to believe on Him who justifies the ungodly. The Holy 
Spirit convicts the world of sin because they believe not 
on Me—Jesus Christ—(He does not convict them to get 
them 1 to believe but because they will not believe. There¬ 
fore it hinders your justification to lay your grief, your 
contrition, your humiliation, as the foundation, or even a 
part of the foundation of your justification. This hin¬ 
drance must be removed before you can lay the right 
foundation, or rather exercise faith in the right founda¬ 
tion which has been laid. The right foundation is not 
contrition (though that is not your own), not your right¬ 
eousness, nothing of your own, nothing that is wrought 
in you by the Holy Ghost (like conviction or sorrow) 
but it is something without you altogether, namely, the 
righteousness and blood of Christ! 

“For this is the Word: ‘To him that worketh not, 
but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his 
faith is counted to him for righteousness’, and Jesus 
Christ Himself is our faith’s Author and Finisher. 
Nothing in us for the foundation, for there is no bond 
between God and the ungodly; no tie to unite them; they 
are altogether separate from each other; nothing in com¬ 
mon; apart from the merit of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the earth, who has bridged the gap. This 
then do if you will lay a right foundation—go straight to 
Christ with all your ungodliness, to the One Mediator 
between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus—tell Him, 
Thou whose eyes are a flame of fire searching my 
heart, seest that I am ungodly. I plead no merits. I do 
not say I am humble or contrite; but I am ungodly. 




MODERN THESES 


163 


Therefore I come to Him who justifieth the ungodly. 
Let Thy blood be the propitiation for me.’ 

“Here is a mystery. Here the wise men of the 
world are lost, are taken in their own craftiness; this the 
learned of the world cannot understand or comprehend— 
it is foolishness to them. Sin is the only thing that sep¬ 
arates men from God. ,, The shed blood of the Lamb of 
God is the only thing that gives us access to God. “He 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” God cannot 
look upon sin with any degree of allowance, yet He so 
loved the sinner that He gave His only begotten Son, 
His Beloved Son, that the sinner might be saved. Won¬ 
drous grace, matchless love and condescension!! 

To one who contemplated jumping into the river 
and, as they expressed it, ending all, because the past 
life has been so ungodly, we advised them to contem¬ 
plate rather the fact that their ungodliness was just the 
reason they could be justified, since God justifies the 
ungodly, and that Christ came not to call the righteous, 
but sinners to repentance. She saw it and was soon 
filled with all joy and peace in believing and shortly 
thereafter was actively at work in His vineyard. 

“Reconciled to God by the death of His Son”—this 
is the word of reconciliation which we preach. This is 
the foundation which can never be moved. Therefore 
Paul cried out—“God forbid that I should glory save in 
the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. By faith we are 
built upon this foundation and this faith also is a gift 
of God, through Jesus Christ its Author and Finisher. 
It is His free gift which He now and ever gives to those 
that are willing to receive it. And when they have re- 




164 


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ceived this gift of God, then their hearts will melt for 
sorrow that they have so offended Him. 

“But, this gift of God lives in the heart, not the head 
for—‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness’.” 
So one has well said: “The refining verities of believing 
experience (i. e. experience verified by the Word of 
God), immeasurably transcend the refined subtleties of 
unbelieving exegesis.” 





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The How of Salvation^—Futile Human Answers 

CHAPTER XIV 

How false are the words spoken by a Methodist 
Doctor of Divinity in a Wesleyan University—“Char¬ 
acter building and the making of men should be the main 
business of industry. The articles manufactured should 
be by-products. A worth part of our time should be 
spent developing character. A man can undo his past, 
conquer his present and lay claim to his future if he 
spends part of his time in service for his fellowmen.” 
Here again is the attempt to merit salvation by service. 
No, rather, let us hear the words from a recent editorial 
in the New York Christian Advocate: “There is nothing 
that the Church and the world need more today than the 
fearless, vigorous, tender, persistent preaching of sal¬ 
vation by faith. They need it because the minds of men 
are befogged and befuddled. The multitudinous “isms” 
and “ologies” of the past hundred years have left the 

people bewildered.The proclamation that 

only by faith can a man be saved is called for, not only 
because they are mystified but because they are misled. 
The greatest curse of modern religious teaching is its 
revival of the doctrine of salvation by works. The doc¬ 
trine is not preached in so many words. It is merely 
suggested. It is implied by the modern emphasis and 
trend. It is a perversion of the vital principle of service 
contained in the widespread idea that the only thing 
necessary in order to become a Christian is to go to 
church or subscribe to the benevolences, or serve on the 





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official board, or endow a college, or to cooperate in 
philanthropic activities.” 

In our early ministry we used to quote (because we 
knew no better) the words of Sam Jones that if a man 
would act before he was a Christian as he would act 
after he became a Christian, it would not be long until 
he was a Christian, which we now see is as false as the 
salvation by works taught by Romanism. 

Said a Baptist woman, when salvation by faith had 
been preached, “I have made my confession”, by which 
she meant that she had publicly confessed Christ. But 
she did not have the-peace of pardon given in justifica¬ 
tion by faith, by which it was evident that her “confes¬ 
sion”, whatever she meant, was short of the repose of the 
soul in the merits of Christ for salvation by faith in Him 
alone. 

A prominent evangelist used to have hundreds 
hastily rush to the front to shake his hand, in response 
to his call for them to resolve to be better men and 
women; and he would get others to promise that they 
would establish family altars. Now men and women may 
resolve to be better, and sinners may pray at family 
altars for a life time and go to hell in the end, apart from 
faith in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Family altars are 
not conditions but results of salvation by faith. “(How¬ 
ever, we would not minimize the blessings derived from 
true family worship, and the great need of it in our day 
when there is such a dearth of hearing the Word of God 
and Satan is driving us until we think that everything 
we do and say must be “Snappy”, and there is little 
time to commune and meditate. “Train up a child in th e 
way he should go and when he is old he will not depart 




MODERN THESES 


167 


therefrom,” is still worth testing out. It has been said 
that nine-tenths of all professing Christians are between 
the ages of seventeen and twenty-five, and doubtless 
many of these young Christians have been saved at 
family altars, or at family worship, which expression we 
prefer. At least they have received their inspiration and 
teaching there, which eventually was used as the means 
of bringing them into the fold)/’ 

THE HOW OF SALVATION—HUMAN ANSWERS 

. . . “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”—Acts 16:30. 

“What must I do to be saved?” The very form of 
the question shows that the inquirer was laboring under 
false impressions. There is tremendous egotism in it. 
What must I do? Here is gross human presumption— 
to think that finite man could do the work which the 
infinite God alone can accomplish. It also shows how 
far fallen man is from God in his presumption that he 
can work his way back to God, by what he does, by his 
own works. It did not dawn upon the poor lost jailor 
to ask what must God do for him to save him. The pre¬ 
vailing poison of salvation by human efforts and works 
so possessed him that instinctively he offers to help 
Omnipotence. Fortunately for him, the petition is 
addressed to one who went thru all the agony and futil¬ 
ity of salvation by works,—and who was saved by 
grace thru faith, and knew how to help those who were 
in the same sad plight. But before he gives the answer, 
let us consider some of the futile answers of men to this 
question: 

To be saved, New Thought tells us that we must 





168 


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think lofty, noble thoughts. How is the unregenerate 
man to do this, since “the carnal mind is enmity against 
God”, and only the Christian, who has been born again, 
has “the mind of Christ ?” 

The Character Builder answers: “Strong, firm reso¬ 
lution is sufficient.” But the Word says that “the heart 
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked— 
who can know it?” and “Without Me ye can do nothing.” 

Another replies: “Study the Bible; know the com¬ 
mandments if you would practice them.” But how is 
this possible apart from the new nature which loves to 
do this? “The natural man understandeth not the things 
of God for spiritual things are spiritually discerned.” 

The one who hopes for salvation thru the suprem¬ 
acy of the natural will, advises determined concentration 
to overcome sin and self. 

Socialization, with its social service, is the remedy 
offered 'by another. Some of the activities of social serv¬ 
ice are commendable, but providing for man’s physical 
welfare, and even in some cases, feeding his soul, will 
not beget spiritual life. 

“Organize the activities of the community into a 
Community Center and attack the problem en masse; 
mix church and world, abolish the lines of separation, 
recognize all men as brothers, unite in social programs, 
and thus gradually assimilate the world into the 
Church,” say others. The Word of God says—“Can two 
walk together except they be agreed?” “What fellow¬ 
ship hath light with darkness?” Can the Holy Spirit 
indwelling the believer, and the “spirit that now worketh 
in the children of disobedience”, when mingled in com¬ 
munity activities, find fellowship and brotherhood? 




MODERN THESES 


169 


Says Christian Science (which is neither Christian 
or scientific) “Deny the facts of sin, sickness, death, 
Satan, demons and the necessity of the blood atonement 
of Christ as man’s only hope of redemption.” 

“Join church, be catechised and confirmed, attend 
communion and pay tribute, and all will be well,” is 
heard from other sources; substitutes for salvation by 
faith. 

“Embrace the seven infallible sacraments”, is the 
answer given to millions of our day. 

“Do no harm to your fellows, pay your honest bills 
(which is merely good business) do good to the sick 
and afflicted; serve your fellowmen”—but these are the 
results of salvation, not the means by which we are 
saved. 

“Follow the conscience—conscience is an infallible 
guide”, says another. Forget not that Paul testified that 
he was living in all good conscience when he stood by 
and consented to the death of Stephen, aiding and abet¬ 
ting the foul deed by holding the clothes of its perpetra¬ 
tors. We may, after knowing Christ as our Saviour, 
however, trust Him to “purge our conscience.” Not 
until then, however. 

Adventism comes to the rescue with an answer: 
“Observe a day; be a vegetarian and eat no meat.” 

The Uniformist would save us by dressing us up in 
a peculiar garb. They say, “Wear the peculiar cut coat 
and high-top storm-front, windshield, flap-jack vest with 
a large collar button in place of the modest tie; substi¬ 
tute hooks and eyes for buttons and dress like a fright 
to advertise the barrenness of the soul that seeks salva¬ 
tion by the garb. The Scriptures specify no other pecti- 




170 


MODERN THESES 


liarities than modesty of apparel as a proof of, and not 
as a means to salvation. Plain clothes are often the 
grave clothes of a dead formality. Of all hideous sights 
—scarecrow clothes and an unshining face! Of all 
beautiful sights, modest apparel and a shining face. 
The peculiarity of God’s people is not in their dress but 
their zealousness of good works! 

The Hippodrome wholesale revivalist offers the 
trail, the hand-shake, the signature of the syllogism and 
the choice of churches and the hope that if the good 
start is followed, salvation will ensue. Thank God 
whenever it does, but there is a shorter and simpler 
method. The Scriptural way is salvation by faith in a 
Person, immediately conferred in response to saving 
faith. “Except ye believe that I am He ye shall die in 
your sins.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved.” 

Playing the man. holding up the head, throwing 
back the shoulders, looking the world in the eye and 
marching down the saw-dust trail, can never do as a 
substitute for the simple—“Look unto Me, all ye ends 
of the earth and be ye saved, for I am God and there is 
none else.” “For there is none other Name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” 

Again men are told to have strong convictions and 
to stand for them with all their powers; or be straight on 
the fundamentals and thoroughly orthodox in all your 
religious views. The Pharisees were thoroughly ortho¬ 
dox in views and safe teachers, intellectually, of the 
Law, according to the Master’s testimony, and their 
ministry of truth was to be commended, but they could 
not escape the damnation of hell notwithstanding all their 




MODERN THESES 


171 


orthodoxy, and the fact that they were long on robes and 
doctrines. We need the Spirit of God to set our ortho¬ 
doxy on fire; we must have the power as well as the 
form. 

“You will save yourself by throwing yourself heart¬ 
ily into the betterment programmes of the day”, says 
another. 

One says, “Be knowing, be wise, salvation is by 
education, by culture.” There is no decrying of true 
culture, but it is not the instrumentality God has chosen 
by which to save the soul. 

The cry is heard—“Pe a philanthropist, a lover of 
mankind.” But many a philanthropist has violated the 
love of mankind in the method of accumulating the 
means of his philanthropy. 

“Say the Rosary”, another tells us, “and you will 
earn peace.” 

Again, “Have rigid militaristic rules of betterment 
and execute them daily. Persevere. Exercise your will. 
Participate in the eucharist.” 

|One poor man under deep conviction, told the 
writer that he thought if he were willing to go to jail 
that he would be saved. This is a new thought:—salva¬ 
tion by going to jail. To try to make a deep impression 
as to the futility of salvation by serving a prison sen¬ 
tence, we told him he might as well expect to be saved 
by his willingness to go to hell. 

In other places, too much is made of confession, 
apology, restitution, and pilgrimages to certain places. 
Restitution, if necessary to salvation, would have barred 
the thief on the cross, who was saved at the eleventh 
hour and given no opportunity to restore what he evi- 





172 


MODERN THESES 


dently had stolen. Some things can never be made 
right. Those that can, need not be, as a condition of 
salvation. The Lord accepts the willing mind to adjust 
such matters, saves the willing suppliant on the condi¬ 
tion of faith, trusts him, and at the earliest opportunity 
the restitution is made where possible, as a proof of 
salvation by faith, not as a condition of it. 

“Be baptized and have a certificate of your bap¬ 
tism artistically framed and hung in a conspicuous place 
to remind you of the step you have taken”, says yet 
another. The writer is reminded of calling the attention 
of his hostess, at a certain place, to the fact that bap¬ 
tism, apart from the birth of the Spirit, was not the gate 
of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. He was com¬ 
pelled to hunt another boarding-house for his fidelity to 
the truth. 

“Say your prayers, have a warm spot in your heart 
for religion, go to church, have an enthusiasm for beau¬ 
tiful, ritualistic ceremonies”, is heard in other quarters. 
“Go to church Sunday, you will feel better all week. 
Write home to Mother.” Surely, but think not of saving 
merit in it. 

Others answer the burning question legalistically, 
saying, “Except ye keep the law of Moses and be cir¬ 
cumcised ye cannot be saved.” “Observe all the reli¬ 
gious feasts and feast-days and times, seasons and cus¬ 
toms.” But hear the Word—“Ye observe days and 
months and times and years. I am afraid of you lest 
I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Gal., 4:10-11. 

To relieve the monotony of these futile human 
answers, let us intersperse some good news:— 

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works 




MODERN THESES 


173 


of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have 
believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by 
the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law: for 
by the works of the law (ancient or modern) shall no 
flesh be justified. ,, Gal., 2:16-17. 

“I do not frustrate the grace of God (by recourse to 
the law) : for if righteousness come by the law (any law) 
then Christ is dead in vain.” Galatians 2:21. 

“For as many as are of the works of the law are 
under the curse: for it is written; Cursed is every one 
that continueth not in all things which are written in the 
book of the law to do them! But that no man is jus¬ 
tified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for 
‘The just shall live by faith.' ” 

“And the law is not of faith: but, ‘The man that 
doeth them shall live in them.' ” 

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law”, Galatians 3:10. 

But to return to the answers of men to the Great 
Question, “What must I do to be saved?” 

You might get relief by entering a monastery, or 
convent, or by circumcision, catechism, confirmation and 
participation in your first communion. 

Accept Dowieism, Mormonism, Russelism, Seventh 
Day Adventism. 

Set on a new life in real earnest as iWesley did. 

Change your mode of baptism, be immersed. Be¬ 
lieve in Election. 

Serve your fellowmen; turn over a new leaf. 
Reform. 

Quit smoking and chewing and stop swearing and 
clean up your life. Eliminate card playing, quit dancing.. 




174 


MODERN TiHESES 


stop going to the movie, stay away from the vau-devil, 
fest-evil, cir-cuss, and carn-evil, don’t go in bad com¬ 
pany, cut the old crowd. Salvation by believing on 
Jesus will include all this, but all of these eliminations 
will not include salvation without saving faith. The 
highly moral man, for respectabilities’ sake and for repu¬ 
tational reasons, avoids most of them, but he does not 
place his whole reliance on the blood of Christ for sal¬ 
vation. 

A supposedly higher order of answers include ex¬ 
hortation to develop character, assert manhood, decide 
for Christ, take a stand, use all the means of grace, fast 
Wednesdays and Fridays, and especially be serious for a 
spell in Lent; be exemplary, sacrifice ease and honor, 
wealth and every temporal gratification. Use your best 
endeavors, be punctual at all the church services, bow 
your head on reaching your seat, say your prayers, 
morning watch, evening vespers, private and public and 
family, including grace at meals. 

“Decorate your walls with beautiful scriptural 
mottoes.” Said a Colporteur on entering a home, “I 
knew this was a Christian home as soon as I saw the 
beautiful wall texts.” Yes, provided the Scripture be 
in the heart and not limited to the walls. 

“Live up to the teachings of the Lodge; help the 
poor, meet the demand of the Centenary—One good 
brother, under conviction for sin, seeking light, said he 
had done all he knew to do except that he had not 'met 
the demands of the Centenary.’ Calling his attention 
to the one condition of faith in Christ for convicted 
souls, saving faith, he was saved. The demands of the 
Centenary are not in any sense a condition of salvation, 




MODERN THESES 


175 


neither for its inception or perpetuity. The saved per¬ 
son may meet the good things in it as one of the fruits 
of his salvation—never as a means to saving grace— 
that would he a revival of salvation by works. 

“Be willing to give anything; be willing to do any¬ 
thing ; be willing to go anywhere; be ready for any work 
in any world; do more for the Lord; enter holy orders.’' 
Wesley tried the modern slogan of “readiness for any 
work in any world/’ in this world of ours, but it would 
not work. He got no salvation by crossing the ocean: 
but he did get conviction, in the storm 1 , that he was not 
a saved man, while beholding the victorious demeanor 
of the Moravians who were rejoicing in salvation thru 
faith rather than works. The howling winds, the mighty 
billows which swept the decks, the ominous thunders, 
the vivid lightnings flashing, and the terrified, screaming 
English, were not enough to mar their peace in Christ 
and Wesley saw the fruits of salvation by faith, discov¬ 
ered he was afraid to die, was convinced of the sin of 
unbelief, and later, after, as one vividly put it, thirteen 
years of religious life, unprecedented for its activities, 
in which he had “more religion before he had any (ex¬ 
perimental) than many of us have after we claim to have 
it all/* he was justified by faith and his heart was 
strangely warmed. 

Practice yogi, auto suggestion, self-hypnotism, hear 
a voice, pray for a wonderful dream, look for writing in 
the heavens; be serious; be a man; go forward; appear 
before the Presbytery and tell them your troubles; go 
to an altar; accept the traditions of the modern elders: 
follow the proselytes if you are dissatisfied; leave one 
church and join another. 





176 


MODERN THESES 


Ad infinitum are the human answers which divert 
the poor, troubled soul and block the way to the cross of 
Christ. Do good, treat everybody right, and ultimately 
you will become good—nay, but be made a new creature 
in Christ Jesus by faith, be made good and you will 
spontaneously do good. 

For the heart’s ills the ritualist would point to his 
ritualism and the legalist to his legalism; the formalist 
to his formalism; others to their way or their uniform; 
the ascetic to his asceticism; the hydrolater to the tank, 
cistern, pond or stream; the bigot calls for radical con¬ 
formity to his bigotry; the radical to his radicalism; the 
Theosophist to his system; the Mormon, to Mormon- 
ism; the Buddhist to Buddhism. They have no Christ 
to offer for they do not know Him themselves. 

How delightfully refreshing is the “Good News” of 
Salvation thru faith in Someone, in Him who has accom¬ 
plished it all for us. How the air is clarified, rarified, 
purified and sweetened until it seems like heaven itself 
after traveling in these dark labyrinths of men. Sud¬ 
denly we emerge into the verdant fields of living green, 
led by the still waters by Christ Himself Who is the 
Way, the Truth and the Life, and hear him say—“I that 
speak unto thee am He”—the Messias, the Saviour of 
the world, thy Saviour!” 

To be saved; enough has been done already; we 
need only believe He has done enough, that “God hath 
laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” 

“What must I do to be saved?” Do nothing! We 
have done too much already! We must see that our 
doing rather than trusting has been the insurmountable 
barrier to our salvation. Our works, our doings, (espe- 




MODERN THESES 


177 


dally when there is a subtle thought of merit in them,) 
are evil. “The works of the world are evil”, said the 
Master. Especially men need see the evil of their reli¬ 
gious works prior to salvation, as a substitute offered 
to God for that faith alone which He demands. 

Do nothing, believe on Some One! and thou shalt 
be saved. It must be remembered that the demand of 
Paul for faith was spoken to a man who had been thor¬ 
oughly awakened to his lost estate by terrific, convul¬ 
sive, earthquake conviction; and that it was a demand 
for saving faith as distinguished from mere intellectual 
belief. 

Saving faith is impossible for unconvicted, unrepen¬ 
tant sinners. Their faith is head faith, not of the heart. 
No more sufficient to salvation than the faith of a devil 
who believes and retains his devil nature. Indeed this 
is the point of discrimination between the two kinds of 
faith. The one saves the soul, changes the life, and the 
other leaves its possessor in sin and with a hardened 
unrepentant heart. 

True faith will always be followed by its appro¬ 
priate concomitant fruits or evidences, including as the 
early Moravians taught: 

Dominion over sin; constant peace; a sense of for¬ 
giveness all of which is the gift of God. 

IWesley described the fruits of saving faith as, deliv¬ 
erance 

“From all uneasiness of mind. 

“From the anguish of a wounded spirit. 

“From all discontent. 

“From fear. 

“From sorrow of heart. 




178 


MODERN THESES 


“From listlessness and weariness, both of the world 
and ourselves.” 

Men lack justification because they lack faith, for 
“Being justified by faith we have peace with God thru 
Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

Condemnation is the result of the relinquishment of 
faith—“Having condemnation because they have cast off 
their first faith.” 

“He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but 
he that believeth not is condemned already because he 
hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son 
of God.” 

The world is in sin because of unbelief. The Holy 
Spirit convicts of sin because men believe not on Jesus. 
P'aith in Him would eliminate the sin. 

Death, listlessness, lifelessness, are all traceable to 
unbelief. John says that the Word was written that 
men might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that 
believing they might have life. 

The absence of joy and peace is caused by unbelief 
for they are “filled with all joy and peace in believing.” 

Instabliity, lack of establishment, and the “wiggle 
and wobble” everywhere prevalent among professors of 
all degrees of grace, can be tracked to unbelief’s lair— 
“If ye will not believe neither shall ye be established.” 

Unbelief even impugns the Divine integrity and 
virtually calls God a liar. Men cannot live a day with¬ 
out faith in each other, and though shocked repeatedly, 
and their confidence violated ruthlessly, they still go on 
placing faith in mortals. God never betrayed anyone’s 
trust and yet it is regarded as hazardous, a risk no under¬ 
writer will assume, to launch out on God’s Word. “He 




MODERN THESES 


179 


that believeth not hath made God a liar; because he 
believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.” 1 
Jno. 5 :10. 

‘!He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in 
himself”—no longer need of great anxiety about the wit¬ 
ness, or the assurance. The Spirit of God, sent into our 
hearts, when we believe, cries—“Abba, Father.” 































































































































































































































MODERN THESES 


181 


The How of Salvation—The Answer of Jesus 

CHAPTER XV 

“For if ye believe not that I am He ye shall 
die in your sins/’ John 8:24. 

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31. 

For ages before the advent of Jesus on the scene of 
earth's activities, men had been looking for the Messiah. 
Christ performed many miracles and some believed on 
Him; others questioned, when the real Messiah came, 
would He do more miracles than this man doeth? Jesus 
claimed to be their Messiah and the Light of the World. 
More than that: the God whom the Jews claimed was 
their God, He claimed was His Father and if they really 
loved Him and knew Him as they claimed they would 
love His Son whom He has sent. If God were their 
Father He was His Son and they were brothers and 
should love the members of the Father’s family. If, also, 
they were the children of Abraham, as they claimed, 
they would do the works of Abraham. The Abraham 
they claimed as their father rejoiced to see His day and 
if they were His children they would honor Him too. 

The God they claimed was their God, yet whom they 
knew not, had not only sent Him but had given Him the 
words He spoke and inspired Him to do all the works 
He did before them. He claimed also to be God—“I 
and the Father are One.” 

To the charge that His witness was not true because 




182 


MODERN THESES 


He bore witness of Himself He replied that there was 
Another who bore witness of Him, and even their own 
law said that in the mouth of two witnesses every word 
should be established. 

Further, that !He was their true Messiah, fulfilling 
all the prophecies concerning Messiah, was proven, He 
said, by the fact that the Father not only sent Him 
into the world, (that He did not come of Himself) but 
that the Father actually gave him commandments, what 
to say and what to speak and showed Him what works 
to perform, so that His doctrines and works were not His 
own but His that sent Him, and rejecting such over¬ 
whelming evidence was not to reject the Man Christ 
Jesus before them but the One they called their God, 
who sent Him. 

Again, in the controversy, He charged them, “Ye 
both know Me and ye know whence I am; and ye know 
that God sent me and confirms my Divine origin, by the 
working of such powers and miracles as the world never 
knew; “but though He had done so many miracles among 
them yet they believed not on Him:” even His own 
brethren did not believe on Him. “Whence is He?' , 
“Who is He?” “Where will He go?” “Will He go up 
to the feast?” ‘TWill He kill Himself?” were questions 
asked. There was a division because of Him. 

It is a pathetic fact that the Son of God, most 
worthy of perfect trust, must ever labor to get men to 
believe on Him. The Master tells the unbelieving Jews 
that His Father had confirmed His mission by every 
necessary evidence; that He was sent of God no fair mind 
could doubt, and if after all this overwhelming evidence 
they still persisted in their unbelief they must die in 




MODERN THESES 


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their sins: “For if ye believe not that I am He ye shali 
die in your sins.” 

The text teaches that the Jews, with all their faith 
in God as their Father and themselves as His chosen 
people, were sinners—that they, religious to the extreme, 
were too, in sin. 

It teaches that they needed saving from their sin 
by some outside agency or agent than what they trusted 
as equivalent to salvation. That their boasted descen- 
dancy from Abraham or ancestral salvation was inade¬ 
quate to their need; that unless they were saved from 
the sins of their life and state there would be the pay¬ 
ment of the fearful penalty of present and eternal death 
in sin; that they might be saved, impliedly from all 
the guilt, pollution, power and penalty of their sins and 
sin on the simple condition of Faith. But properly 
directed faith: not by faith in traditionalism, nor ances¬ 
try; nor in a dogma, creed, party or movement sect or 
system, but by faith in a Person: “Believe that I am He” 
—Messiah. 

What a terrible alternative for unbelief! Faith or 
Death ! Death, present and eternal! 

How we have darkened counsel by words! How we 
have muddled the way to salvation by our insistence on 
salvation by newly invented modern Protestant works! 
How we have blocked the way to the cross, in ignor¬ 
ance, insisting on things and steps as essential which 
God's word is strangely silent about! We have inter¬ 
vened steps between men and salvation! We have said 
you must do this and this and you must see this and 
this and this and you must believe this and this and 
this. 




184 


MODERN THESES 


In the text the Lord Jesus lays down one single 
solitary condition for salvation and it is not faith in a 
statement of doctrine or things one must do but faith in 
Some One, faith in a Person, Himself. There may be 
subsequent acts of faith in Himself for higher degrees in 
salvation but in each instance the condition is the same— 
‘‘Sanctified by faith that is in Me”—a different appre¬ 
hension of need supplied by faith in the same One. 

This has been our trouble, we have many times tried 
to pin our faith, and have forced others to pin their 
faith, to things which were short of Jesus Christ Him¬ 
self and we have almost driven freedom in Christ from 
the world, so that an earnest soul asks—“Where are the 
really free souls in Christ?” With Romanism it is faith 
in the infallible Church and Popes; with Protestantism 
it is fast becoming a matter of faith in the infallible con¬ 
sciousness of the 20th. Century stamp. But, thank God, 
all these lights have failed, only Jesus has not failed; He 
abideth faithful; He is ever the same. Unless we see 
Him as the end of the law for righteousness, and repose 
our faith in Him alone we must ever continue to be 
tossed about by every alternating wind which blows like 
the North Dakota tumble weed—by every wind of doc¬ 
trine, by every new preacher and every new shade of 
meaning in interpretation of the Scriptures. Let us 
immediately stop trying to adjust ourselves to men and 
submit ourselves to the Master. He will resolve our 
troublesome religious questions by the Vision of Him¬ 
self—“When you see Me,” he said to the questioning 
disciples (Weym., Tr. Jno. 16), “you will ask Me no 
questions then.” 




MODERN THESES 


185 


The Master Illustrates the Method of the 
Text in His own Work. 

Instance the poor cripple at the pool who was look¬ 
ing to many sources for healing except the one right 
source. 

He was pinning his faith on the certain season. 

iHe was trusting the waters. 

And the waters when troubled. 

And to stepping in them first. 

And to the angel who came down to trouble the 
waters. 

Finally he thought some man could help him: “I 
have no man to put me down” when the certain season 
rolls around with the down coming angel and the 
troubled waters. Is it not pathetic how the poor world 
after numberless disappointments and positive betrayals 
through man still looks to man and his efforts for deliv¬ 
erance from its ills? 

Jesus pitied his plight, knew the futility of salva¬ 
tion from all other sources and securing his attention to 
faith in Himself said, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk.” 

We would not need to lie around with the multi¬ 
tude so long in helpless spiritual impotency if we would 
be willing to look away from everything and everybody 
to Jesus. That is what Hebrews 12:1-2 means in the 
German translation: “Look off unto Jesus.” Look off 
of everything and every body and every human prop 
and method, and every source of deliverance except 
Jesus Himself. “For if ye believe not that I am He ye 
shall die in your sins.” 

Then instance the man born blind, whom Jesus 
healed and whom the Jews for jealousy excommunicated. 




186 


MODERN THESES 


He has peculiar love for those who have been cast out 
of the synagogue for His Name's sake, so He hunted him 
up at the outskirts of the city and asked him if He 
believed on the Son of God, and the healed blind man 
replied, “Who is He Lord, that I might believe on Him?" 
Jesus tenderly replied, “Thou hast both seen Him and 
He it is that speaketh with thee." And he worshipped 
him and was saved without any other condition—the 
vision of Jesus is enough. 

Observe, Jesus did not ask him if he believed in the 
Rabbinical lore, or the Talmudic expositions of the Doc¬ 
tors of the Law, or the six hundred and thirteen negative 
and positive rules for salvation, of the Pharisees who 
were dead in sins notwithstanding all their pretense to 
piety, but the one sufficient question, “Do you believe 
on the Son of God?" Let us repeat, “For except ye 
believe that I am He ye shall die in your sins." 

Having Him the soul need not be concerned about 
joining the propaganda or submitting to the doctrinal 
formulae as a condition of salvation, but is free to fol¬ 
low the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth, for He includes 
all the good in all parties and formulaes. 

Let not the seven steps of Keswickism, nor the hun¬ 
dred distinctions between justification and sanctification 
of the zealot for fine discriminations, nor theories of the 
one, two, three or fourfold gospel (which is, however 
manifold) neither yet the traditions of the elders ancient 
or modern nor the commandments of men nor their 
peculiar doctrinal tenets keep us from going straight to 
Jesus believing on Him and being filled with all joy and 
peace in believing. 

Oh, that our churches, instead of offering men their 




MODERN THESES 


187 


peculiar tenets would simply present Jesus as the One 
essential to salvation in all its stages. How sweet, and 
how simple is Jesus’ method of salvation from sin by 
faith in a Person, rather than in a sacrament or a system. 
How much easier to repose faith in a Person than in 
that which is impersonal! 

The case of the Samaritan woman at the well is 
another illustration of the Master’s use of the method 
of the text. He did not stir her antagonism by specify¬ 
ing a change of church relation from Samaritan to Jew, 
or of worship, from Mount Gerizim to Jerusalem, or 
proselytism from Samaritanism into the Jews’ religion, 
for the Jews had no dealing with the Samaritans. He 
simply offers Himself as the way out of her dilemna: 
"If thou knewest the gift of God (Jesus Himself is the 
Gift of God of whom Paul wrote ‘Thanks be unto God 
for His unspeakable gift’) and Who it is that asketh 
thee drink thou wouldst have asked of Him and He 
would have given thee living water.” 

We are in danger of losing Christ Himself in this 
day as in Luther’s day. Only then He was lost in the 
dark. Our danger is that we shall lose Him in the light 
of what we term correct knowledge about Him. Only 
now with so much activity in His Name it will be diffi¬ 
cult to see wherein we have lost Him. We have sub¬ 
stituted a Christian (?) legalism, as one suggests, for 
the ancient legalism. 

There are between seven and eight thousand refer¬ 
ences to Himself in the New Testament and including 
Him in the unity of the Godhead a fair approximation of 
the references of the entire Bible would be fifteen thou¬ 
sand. Think of this preeminence of the Personal God 




188 


MODERN THESES 


and then of how much more we hear of the church than 
Him; and of the emphasis of a particular mode of bap¬ 
tism which it is hard to prove was ever practiced; or of 
the hair splitting doctrinal discussions down through the 
History of the Church. We think there are not five 
hundred references to the Holy Spirit in the New Testa¬ 
ment. Not twenty-five references to speaking in tongues 
in the entire Bible. Six hundred references to the com¬ 
ing of the Lord; few to the triulation; one specific refer¬ 
ence to the second grace, though it is implied oftener, in 
the New Testament. No mention of the four-fold Gos¬ 
pel specifically. Go on my reader and develop this 
thought and see how the ratio or proportion of the 
exaltation of Christ Himself overtowers every other doc¬ 
trine. Then think how we have contended for these and 
divided the church into endless sects and parties and 
thereby stumbled and damned many of the world, and 
Oh, may it please God to lead us all back to the feet of 
Christ in deep penitence because of our ignorance. 

The position of Sonship was bestowed upon those 
who received Himself: “For as many as received Him 
to them gave He power to become the sons of God even 
to those who believed on His Name, which were born, 
not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the man 
but of God.” The writer of these lines is deeply con¬ 
scious of his unworthiness of all the manifold goodness 
of God to him in Christ, but he has many times been 
thankful to God that the man of God who won his soul 
did not offer him salvation through the Southern Metho¬ 
dist Church; but offered him Jesus only and asked him 
to accept Him, which he did the best he knew, and was 




MODERN THESES 


189 


born of His Spirit, later making a full surrender and was 
filled with the Spirit. 

Zaccheus received Him joyfully and salvation came 
to his house, including in his conversion the giving of 
half his g'oods to feed the poor. Where do those come in 
who claim a life a degree in advance of Zaccheus who 
still limit their stewardship to a Mormon’s one tenth? 

This direct faith in Jesus merits the Father’ love: 
“The Father Himself loveth you because ye have loved 
me and believed that I came out from God.” 

The great issue is still Jesus Himself and whether 
we will have this Man to reign over us. 

The famous text, John three sixteen, is in harmony 
with the text: “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not 
perish (or die in his sins), but have everlasting life”— 
“Except ye believe that I am He ye shall die in your 
sins.” Let us ever remember that God offers us salva¬ 
tion not by faith in a dogma or doctrine, but by believ¬ 
ing in a Person, His Son. 

Philip Schaff said: “The Person of Christ is the 
great Central Miracle of history and the strongest evi¬ 
dence of Christianity. The Person of Christ is to me the 
surest as well as the most sacred of all facts; as certain 
as my own personal existence, yea, even more so; for 
Christ lives in me, and He is the only valuable part of 
my existence. I am nothing without my Saviour; I am 
all with Him, and would not exchange Him for the 
whole world— His saving grace flows and overflows to 
all on the simple condition of faith in HIMSELF.” 

“Evangelical Theology is essentially Christological, 
or controlled throughout by the proper idea of Christ as 




190 


MODERN THESES 


the God-man and Saviour. This is emphatically the 
article of the standing or falling church.” Ibid. 

We might easily see that this is so in our justifica¬ 
tion without seeing that it is equally so in our sancti¬ 
fication : “That they might be sanctified by faith that is 
in ME”, a Person. Acts 26:18. To the believers He 
offered a deeper freedom on condition of continuing in 
His Word—another revelation of Himself as Truth, and 
the Truth (Jesus) shall make you free indeed. 

Jesus does not emphatically prescribe a lengthy pro¬ 
cess for freedom from sin either in its guilt or pollution, 
in its pardon or cleansing. The writer has seen many 
instances of pardon and purity within from five minutes 
to a few hours after the first apprehension of faith in 
Jesus as sacrifice for sin. 

It is said, “That for hundreds of years the Monastic 
establishments of the Roman Church (and I quote this 
to call attention to similar tendencies among all 
churches: we glibly call Rome, Babylon: whereas any 
organization extant without the Spirit of Jesus is Baby¬ 
lon) prescribed in their rules of life, methods more or 
less elaborate, by which the religious are led towards 
perfection. The Jesuit System reduced its rules to mili¬ 
tary precision and rigor.” 

But Protestantism may unconsciously do the same 
with our emphasis on secondary things; with our seven 
steps to victory. They are doubtless good steps, and 
more or less implied in believing on Jesus, but their 
prescription came after Christ. He only required the 
one step of belief in Himself for salvation from the guilt 
of sin, and continuity in His Word and trusting in Him 
to become free from sin or free indeed. “Sanctify them 




MODERN THESES 


191 


by thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth/’ and “the Truth shall 
make you free.” 

Steps to salvation and humanly imposed conditions, 
however good, are very apt to divert the mind from 
Jesus to the steps we are taking and unconsciously the 
soul trusts the steps when God orders us to trust the 
Lord Jehovah. 

It is a serious thing when Jesus says He alone is the 
way, to present seven steps however good, as the way. 
It is serious to intervene anything between the soul and 
the Saviour. 

A prescribed process to victory may not work alike 
in all cases, as God will not be standardized, in His 
method of delivering the soul. He uses great variety 
and brings some souls into salvation and Canaan, as 
of old, in a way they know not of. 

God save us from a cut and dried, formulaed spe¬ 
cial-mould method of gaining salvation or sanctification, 
and help us to welcome any method and means God is 
pleased to use. A Scotch revivalist says “Ye canna put 
God in a corner.” 

iWe must not look to measures, steps, procedure or 
processes, but to Christ Himself. 

The Lord is not always uniform as to methods, but 
He is more or less so as to results. He is not like man, 
who to get uniform results must use the same moulds or 
patterns. God can use a great variety of methods and 
arrive at the same results. 

Mr. Moody used to say, “The surest way not to help 
another man is to tell him your experience. This is 
because in entering the Christian life the same process is 
not prescribed for all. Your experience is your own 





192 


MODERN THESES 


and not another’s 'because you are not another. God 
has life for every seeker which will just suit him. Offer 
not your experience to the seeker, but your Christ/’ 

A preacher announced his topic: “Many people 
want what they don’t need and need what they don’t 
want. You need the Church”. And so four hundred 
years after the Lutheran Reformation showed the fallacy 
of salvation by the Roman Church, the Protestant 
Church is still offering men a system rather than a Per¬ 
son, and under a new name is repeating the old error of 
substituting a Church for Christ. 





MODERN THESES 


193 


The Greek word “ARKAGOS,” translated LORD, 
means the One in supreme authority, the Head, Chief , 
Prince, King, Master, Ruler, Governor or Owner. 

Much mediaeval religion was pure paganism — found¬ 
ed on superstition and fear; its motive in seeking the church 
was benefit to self. How far are we removed in much of 
our modern religion? Erasmus wrote: (( One worships a 
certain Rochus, and why? For what benefit? Because he 
fancies he will drive away the plague from his body. An¬ 
other murmurs prayers to Barbara or George, lest he fall 
into the hands of his enemy. This man fasts to Appolonia 
to prevent toothache. That man gazes on an image of the 
Divine Job, that he may be free from the itch. In short 
whatever our fears and our desires, we get so many gods 
over them and these are different in different nations. 

u This is not far removed from those who used to vow 
tithes to Hercules in order to get rich (or now give them to 
God to be prospered) ; or a cock to Aesculapius to recover 
from illness; or a slain bull to Neptune for a favorable voy¬ 
age. The names are changed but the objects are the same!’ 

The twentieth century can equal all of this: a promin¬ 
ent business man told the writer that it was a paying invest¬ 
ment to belong to the church, with the ruling that its mem¬ 
bers should buy from and sell to one another, because it 
made business for him. Religious for business reasons! A 
devil could be religious for the same motive! Business men 
are not slow to see the advantage even of a popular evan¬ 
gelistic campaign, commercializing the talents of the evan¬ 
gelist , advertising a revival as a community affair, adding 
volume to business, an asset to the value of real estate. How 
our motives need searching! 




194 


MODERN THESES 


Submission to the Lordship of Jesus will end all wrong 
motives in uniting with the Church for business and social 
reasons, for personal benefit, and give the larger, better mo¬ 
tive of the glory of God. 

Instead of trying to placate some false deity thru devo¬ 
tion and tithe payment, we often try to make a false deity 
out of the One and only true God. 




MODERN THESES 


195 


The Lordship of Christ 

CHAPTER XVI 

“And that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord 
but by the Holy Ghost.”—I Corinthians 12:3 (last 
clause). 

Calling Jesus truthfully Lord, is a matter so momen¬ 
tous that no man can do it unless the Holy Ghost has 
worked the miracle in his heart. Weymouth’s transla¬ 
tion reads: “No man is able to call Jesus Lord but by the 
Holy Ghost.” 

The context shows that Paul has specifically in 
mind His Lordship of the distribution of the nine super¬ 
natural gifts which are outside the realm of saving grace. 
The Lord divides these “Severally as He wills.” This 
is important to note because there are many who claim 
that all may have all the gifts. But all do not speak with 
tongues, all do not have the gift of healing, all do not 
have the gift of faith for working works of power out¬ 
side the realm of salvation, as did Mueller, as evidenced 
in his care of thousands of orphans. 

I recall one man who publicly boasted that he would 
have the gift of tongues in spite of the people who were 
trying to show him that it was not for all. He spent 
many nights in prayer, sold all and moved to California, 
where the Tongues’ Movement is strong, and continued 
his seeking, yet never, to our knowledge did he speak 
in tongues. His wife, who did not seek this particular 
gift, broke out spontaneously, speaking in tongues. 
Thus God divides the gifts severally as, and to whom, 




196 


MODERN THESES 


He will. He is Lord of their distribution and we should 
not dictate to Him as to which gifts we will have. 

As a parent, I know the appropriate gifts for my 
children; I would not present the boys with dolls, nor 
the girls with baseballs; neither would I give candy to 
one of the little girls if I knew it would hurt her, while 
I might give the other girls some, who could eat it with¬ 
out harm. Likewise, our Heavenly Father can be 
trusted to give to each child, the appropriate gift. 

There is an undue magnifying of gifts. Let them 
have their proper place, and covet earnestly the best 
gifts, yet there is a more excellent way—the way of 
love. Let us not be deceived by the thought that we 
are guarded from falling because of our gifts. The 
Adversary does not care so much about the gift, nor 
where it was received, nor the time, but he does fear 
who bestows the gift, He does fear the One who works 
in and thru us; he fears when he sees Jesus! 

Suppose that the writer has an enemy (a supposi¬ 
tion not altogether improbable) who seeks to injure his 
loved ones, and that, thinking to out-wit him, he takes 
valuable presents for all and then leaves home with a 
sense of elation in the assurance that the enemy has 
been baffled by the gifts and cannot harm his dear ones. 
What folly! The enemy says: “Here is a fool; I am 
not afraid of all the presents in the universe he might 
leave his loved ones, but I have heard that he has a ter¬ 
rible punch in his right arm and a record for great physi¬ 
cal strength. I am afraid of him.” 

Oh, beloved, see in this homely illustration the 
truth that God does not preserve us from our terrible 
foe by any, or all of the supernatural gifts which He may 




MODERN THESES 


197 


bestow upon us; He preserves us by Himself. ‘‘Trust 
ye in the Lord Jehovah for in the Lord Jehovah is ever¬ 
lasting strength.” 

THE ANNUNCIATION OF HIS LORDSHIP 

Let us find the scriptural basis for the subject; in 
Luke 2:11 there is the angelic proclamation or annuncia¬ 
tion of His Lordship the good tidings of great joy 
which shall be to all the people—“For unto you is born 
this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ 
the Lord.” He is more than Saviour, He is also Lord. 
In our emphasis of His saving and sanctifying work, we 
have overlooked His relation to us as Lord. Every true 
case of salvation and sanctification implies submission to 
His Lordship, and yet it is a submission whose full con¬ 
tent we may not know only as it is discovered in the 
Word of God. It is easy to say, “I am all the Lord's” in 
glittering generalities, but it is more difficult to be “all 
the Lord’s” in specific enumerations. It is easier to say 
—“Here am I, Lord,” than to follow it with the clause— 
“Send me.” 

Our motives in seeking the benefits of the atone¬ 
ment need searching, lest they be found to be selfish. 
We seek pardon, purity, happiness, healing, heaven, 
rather than the One supremely worthy, and who is 
worthy of all for His own sake! 

Unquestionably there is a looking to the Church for 
material benefit. A few examples: A merchant said that 
he found that it paid to belong to the Methodist church 
as the members patronized him because he was one of 
the flock. Another was eager for a mighty revival in 




198 


MODERN THESES 


her community, as her farm adjoined the church and she 
was eager to sell it at a handsome profit and the revival 
would gender interest in her farm! 

Preaching in Boston, we invited a Jewish tailor to 
the services. “Oh, sure, I come to the service—the pas¬ 
tor is my customer!” 

Ofttimes the church is joined for social reasons and 
for the sake of reputation—it is the proper thing to do; 
the best people of the community belong,—so why not? 
And there are those who find it a fine place to exhibit 
their costumes, particularly their Easter toggery. 

The writer is ashamed to tell it, but as a young man 
in a strange city, he sought out a church and joined it 
from mixed motives; he wanted to go to heaven, to go 
to hell would be disastrous, and he was anxious to re¬ 
main in the most respectable society, ad infinitum. If 
there were no other sins, these selfish motives alone, 
would be sufficient to shut heaven against us. 

Sometimes religious societies are joined for jobs, 
and beds and food. These are the loaves-and-fishes^fol- 
lowers; rice-Christians they are called in China; or per¬ 
haps by joining, is gained the good graces of some 
attractive young lady. Politicians are not unmindful of 
the benefits of churchianity. God search and purify our 
motives in uniting with any church organization or 
movement. Praise God that so far as the true Church 
is concerned, we are assured that the Lord adds daily 
to the Church such as are being saved, and that it is upon 
the Rock Christ Jesus that He is building His Church, 
“and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” 

Do we often seek our own, and not the things of 
Christ? Are we thrill-seekers-ecstacy hunters, living too 




MODERN THESES 


199 


much in our emotions? Let us remember that the joy 
set before Christ was secured thru suffering—His were 
the spiked hands, the spear-pierced side—the thorn- 
crowned brow and anguished mind, and all for our sake, 
He never sought joy for His own sake. 

To a large extent we ignore the sacrificial phase of 
Christianity, and are more familiar with the promises 
which tell of blessing and benefit, than we are with those 
passages which speak of suffering, submission and sur¬ 
render. Precious Promise Testaments have a prodigious 
sale. Let us issue a red-letter Testament with marked 
passages which speak of fellowship with His sufferings. 

THE REFUSAL OF HIS LORDSHIP 

In Matthew 2:6 we read: “Out of thee (Judah) shall 
come forth a Governor that shall rule my people Israel.” 
The Rulership, Governorship, Lordship of His people 
Israel—this was the purpose of His coming to them, but 
Israel as a nation rejected Him. Are we not committing 
the same sin, when we refuse Him as Lord of our indiv¬ 
idual lives, since, we find Paul saying to the Church in 
Romans 14:9 that the object of (His death and resurrec¬ 
tion was that He might be Lord? 

We condemn the Jews for rejecting Christ as King 
and saying—“We have no king but Caesar.” “Awav 
with Him—let Him be crucified!” We need to heed lest 
we repeat their sin. It is true, as has been said, “We 
do not crown Him Lord at all, unless we crown Him 
Lord of all.” He came as Prophet, Priest and King. We 
accept the Prophet Who forth-tells coming events, and 
the Priest Who intercedes for us at the Throne of Grace, 




200 


MODERN THESES 


but the idea of a King and His Rulership is often not so 
pleasant; it carries with it the thought of the levying of 
tribute, the call for sacrifice and service, and the leaving 
of home and loved ones to go forth to battle and often 
to death! 

It is so much easier to hold theories of salvation, of 
sanctification and of victory, than to consent to the com¬ 
plete dethronement of self and the enthronement of 
Jesus as Lord. There are tens of thousands holding the 
theory of complete surrender who know no more of it 
experimentally and actually, than the Hottentot. The 
man who fully surrenders to Jesus as Lord, places no 
more value on anything he may possess, than its relation 
to the extension of the kingdom of heaven. To be as 
devoted to the Lord’s interest as we are to our own, 
is to approximate the consecration outlined in the New 
Testament. When we more readily do for self than we 
do for Him, our love for and consecration to Him is 
questionable. 

“But his citizens hated him and sent a message (an 
ambassage) after Him, saying, ‘We will not have this 
man to reign over us.’ ’’—Luke 19:14. To reign over us! 
It is literally true that the carnal mind is enmity against 
God—it is enmity against the Lordship of Christ—it does 
not oppose doctrine, or experience or emotion so much, 
but it is up in arms at the thought of self being de¬ 
throned and the enthronement of Jesus Christ. 

A General delivers his country from the iron ring of 
foes, he is feted, honored, banqueted; the city is gaily 
decorated; speeches and eulogisms are forthcoming! 
The throne happens to be vacant and someone suggests 
that the great deliverer be made King, but there is a 




MODERN THESES 


201 


storm of protest. “He has done very well to rescue us 
from our foes, to save us from our enemies, but we will 
not have this man to be king over us.” 

How similar, often, is our attitude toward the Lord 
Jesus. We accept His death, His atonement, our deliv¬ 
erance from sin and our citizenship in heaven, our escape 
from hell, but when it comes to making Him Lord of 
all, we cry with the Jews—“We will not have this man 
to reign over us.—We have no king but—self, money, 
pleasure.” 

“How often will a great part of the church lie cold 
and dead, till a revival commences! Then you will see 
them bustling about, and they get engaged, as they call 
it, in religion, and renew their efforts and multiply their 
prayers for a season; and this is what they call getting 
revived. But it is only the same kind of religion they 
had before. Such religion lasts no longer than the pub¬ 
lic excitement. As soon as the church as a whole, begins 
to diminish their efforts for the conversion of souls, 
these individuals relapse into their former worldliness 
and get as near to what they were before their supposed 
conversion, as their pride and fear of the church will let 
them. When a revival comes again, they renew the 
same round; and so they live along by spasms, over and 
over again, revived and backslidden, alternately as long 
as they live. The truth is that they were deluded at the 
first by a spurious conversion, in which selfishness was 
never broken down; and the more they multiply such 
kind of efforts the more sure they are to be lost. 

“It is very common for such professors, after a sea¬ 
son of anxiety and self examination, to settle down on 
the old foundation. The reason is, their habits of mind 





202 


MODERN THESES 


have become fixed in that channel, and therefore, by the 
laws of the mind it is difficult to break into a new course. 
It is indispensable, therefore, if you ever mean to get 
right, that you should see clearly that you have hitherto 
been WHOLLY WRONG, so that you need not multi¬ 
ply any more the kind of efforts that have deceived you 
heretofore. Your selfish hearts were unbroken. This is 
the source of your delusion, if you are deceived. If your 
selfishness was subdued, you are not deceived in your 
hope. If it was not, all your religion is vain, and your 
hope is vain.” 

Here we have the thought vividly put that our 
motives in joining the church and seeking religion and 
religious experiences were selfish; that we thought of 
our own aggrandizement and good rather thn the glory 
of God; the idea of submission to His Lordship did not 
dawn on our minds. Like the ten lepers we wanted and 
got the healing without thought of regulation by the 
Healer. The conscience of only one smote him and he 
returns to follow Jesus as Lord of His life. The distinc¬ 
tion between His Saviourship and His Lordship is easily 
seen. One is drowning I throw to him the life line and 
rescue him. I am only his rescuer, his deliverer, his 
saviour, I am not his lord. 

The exaltation of Christ’s Lordship was the climax 
of Peter’s Sermon on the Day of Pentecost. 

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know 
assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom 
ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 

Now when they heard this they were pricked in 
their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the 
apostles: ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ ” Peter’s 




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answer telling them to repent and be baptized; his en¬ 
couragement that the promise was to them and their 
children; his other words of exhortation and the sequel 
of three thousand souls added to the believers, followed 
by their steadfastness in doctrine, fellowship, and break¬ 
ing of bread and prayers, their community of goods, their 
continued unity, their spirit of praise and influence over 
the people, are known to all. When we speak of defin¬ 
iteness in Pentecostal preaching, let us not overlook the 
acknowledgement of His Lordship as necessary to re¬ 
ceiving the fulness of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:36. 

LORD OF LIFE 

There are heathen gods many and lords many but 
we never read that they are the life of their worshippers. 
Jesus is the Lord of life. He came that we might have 
more abundant life; we are to live because He lives; 
Christ who is our life; those who eat Him (by faith 
appropriate the merits of His atonement) shall live by 
Him. He is called the Prince of life. 

“And killed the Prince of life whom God has raised 
from the dead.” ;Acts 3:15. 

PRINCE AND SAVIOUR 

“Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be 
a Prince and a Saviour; for to give repentance to Israel, 
and forgiveness of sins.” Acts 5:31. Prince and 
Saviour! As Saviour He saves and sanctifies us, as 
Prince He is Lord of those whom He saves, owning, 
ruling, regulating, directing, as He wills. 




204 


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I might rescue one from drowning and he might 
appreciate it and thank me for the deliverance and then 
go out from my presence; or he might say that his 
appreciation for the rescue was so great that he 
wanted me to be the director of his life henceforth. 
Just so, we might appropriate the Lord’s saving, rescue 
work, and yet not seriously think of submitting our¬ 
selves to His Lordship or Rulership. To try to be our 
own boss spiritually, is fatal, and is the spirit of the 
Lawless one. 


HE IS LORD OF ALL 

This was the note Peter had been preaching to Cor¬ 
nelius’ household when the Spirit fell on all them that 
believed: “The word which God sent unto the children 
of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord 
of all) That word, I say, ye know, which was published 
thruout all Judea” . . . Acts. 10:36 . . . “While 

Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all 
them which heard the Word.”—Acts 19:44. 

This should be the normal order of Gospel preach¬ 
ing in the power of the Holy Ghost, the hearers receiv¬ 
ing deliverance during the ministration of the Word. 
“Receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is 
able to save your soul.” The gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation to everyone that believeth. “He sent 
forth His Word and healed them.” The writer is com¬ 
ing more and more to discard all other methods of doing 
God’s work, save in ministering the “faithful Word”. 
“We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the 
ministry of the Word”, if practiced today by preachers, 





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would solve every Church and spiritual difficulty, and 
many of the world’s problems. “Thy Word is a light 
unto my feet and a light unto my path.” The Lord 
worked with the disciples, confirming THE WORD 
with signs following! Note too that the knowledge of 
and assent to His Lordship, precedes the filling with the 
Holy Ghost. 

WE ARE TO CONFESS THAT JESUS IS LORD 

“Ye are my witnesses that I am God” (Isaiah). We 
would not minimize any of His works but we are also 
to confess His Lordship as a condition of salvation: 
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus (the Revised Version reads—“Jesus as Lord”) and 
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him 
from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”—Romans 10:9. 

The greater includes the lesser and the whole in¬ 
cludes the parts and the general includes the particular 
and the confession of Jesus as undisputed Lord includes 
all of His benefits: with Him all things are freely given. 
John Inskip saw this truth when seeking to be sancti¬ 
fied and finally entered in by the confession “I am, 
wholly and forever the Lord’s;” that included all. The 
confession of the Lordship of Christ if not voluntarily 
given will ultimately be compelled from every tongue: 
“That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
the earth; and that every tongue should confess that 
Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philip- 
pians, 2-10:11. 





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HIS LORDSHIP, THE OBJECTIVE OF HIS 
COMING 

The Objective of His incarnation, birth, life, death, 
resurrection and ascension was that He might be Lord: 
This was the end He had in view: not merely to save us 
or sanctify us or heal us or any of the benefits He might 
confer upon us not to give us theories or institutions o; 
ordinances, but that He might ascend the throne of our 
hearts and wield the sceptre of power there bringing 
every thought and deed into captivity to His Sovereign 
will; that He might be Lord over us for our direction 
as well as our protection. Not arbitrarily but for our 
good: submission to His lordship involves our highest 
happiness and usefulness. This was the purpose of His 
coming. Christ is the End of the law for righteousness 
to every one that believeth. Once after preaching on the 
purpose of jHis coming, His Lordship, a dear old lady 
who magnified more what He did than what He was in 
His own Person wrote to us and expressed a wish that 
if we returned to that camp meeting another year we 
would preach the whole gospel. We were perplexed 
to know how one could preach beyond the Lordship of 
Jesus. See Romans 14:9. 

HIS LORDSHIP AND SANCTIFICATION 

A perplexed soul said to a preacher who had spoken 
on “The Lordship of Jesus,” “But where does sanctifi¬ 
cation come in?” The apt reply was “By making Him 
Lord.” There is no Bible sanctification without assent 
to the Lordship of Christ before its reception and con- 




MODERN THESES 


207 


tinuously for its retention. Sanctification is by the in¬ 
dwelling of God: “And the heathen shall know that I 
am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sancti¬ 
fied in you before their eyes.” Sanctification by the 
indwelling of a Person, the Lord God. Not a blessing 
though that is included, but God Himself sanctified in 
them as He said: “I will be sanctified in all them that 
come nigh Me and before all the people I will be glori¬ 
fied.” The word heathen is nations, in the Revised Ver¬ 
sion, who hold God in reproach and derision. This 
will be God’s way of removing the reproach of His 
brethren. What a revelation will come to the world of 
His Eternal power and God-Tiead when Christ shall be 
sanctified in His chosen people Israel. Of the Church it 
is said: “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God 
is made unto us (that is Christ is made unto us) wisdom, 
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 
now why? That, according as it is written, he that 
glorifieth, let him glory in the Lord.” First Corinthians. 
1-30:31. But we have been glorying in the benefits 
enumerated rather than in the Lord. One final passage: 
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” First Peter 
3:15. This is definite enough that sanctification is by 
the indwelling of the personal God by whose indwelling 
it is effected and by whose indwelling it is perpetuated, 
but the Revised Version is more vivid, linking sanctifi¬ 
cation with the Lordship of Christ: “But sanctify Christ 
in your hearts as Lord” and thus there is a basis for an 
ever ready testimony concerning our hope, for our hope 
is Christ in us, the hope of Glory. 

Constant assent to the ever unfolding subject ot 
the Lordship of Christ is also the objective for the 




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growth of those who have sanctified Him in their hearts 
as Lord: “But grow in grace and in the knowledge of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” He is Lord as well 
as Saviour. 

His Lordship is the Basis of the— 

Brotherhood of Man; Service of Man; Equity in 
Wage 

All other ties of brotherhood among men are insuffi¬ 
cient; ropes of sand which fail in the crucial testing 
time: ^One is your Master even Christ and all ye (who 
submit to His Mastership) are brethren” with the broth¬ 
erly helpful spirit serving each other according to capa¬ 
city without any other impelling motive than His Mas¬ 
tership. “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus 
the Lord; (the Revised Version says as Lord), and our¬ 
selves your servants for Jesus sake.” Second Corin¬ 
thians 4:5. Our service to our fellowmen is an expres¬ 
sion of our love to Jesus; in His Name. Equity in 
Wage: “Masters, give your servants that which is just 
and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in 
heaven.” Pay according to your ability, as you would 
like to be paid. Give the seamstress, washer-woman, 
ditch-digger, and carpenter and house girl a living wage. 
People can not understand our theories but they can 
comprehend fair treatment. I think of one dear old 
man who was saved by fair pay for a little puttering job. 
As the tears unbidden gushed forth and he reached for 
the old tattered red bandana handkerchief, he sobbed out 
in broken voice, “I tell you I have worked a good many 
years for men and nobody ever gave me anything be¬ 
fore; I tell you brother, I believe you are a Christian.” 
Before he died he sent us word that he was saved. What 




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209 


is the attitude towards the old and feeble and slow? 
We cannot afford to hire them? What saith the Scrip¬ 
ture? “Ye that are strong ought to bear the infirmities 
of the weak.” 

EXTENT OF HIS LORDSHIP 

There is an annual custom in London where the 
Lord Mayor drives to different parts of the city and 
reads a proclamation about the bounds of the city limits, 
crying: “The bounds of the city limits of London extend 
to here.” Moving about from section to section he 
repeats the same words. The limits of the Lord’s 
authority over our lives need to be determined. His 
authority extends over all our lives and every depart¬ 
ment of them. We are often like the man who told his 
friend to make himself at home; to roam all over the 
house if he would. Taking the host at his word, he 
started on a tour of inspection, going to the kitchen 
first: but the scowl on the face of the cook told him 
plainly that no mere man was wanted there when she 
was preparing dinner. From thence he went into the 
drawing-room where the young lady of the house and 
her beau were sitting; one look from them was suffi¬ 
cient. Disappointed at the outcome, he returned to the 
library where the man of the house, also a man of letters, 
was busy preparing an essay. He spoke not a word and 
the friend was uncomfortably aware that his entrance 
was regarded as an intrusion. Is it not so in our whole¬ 
sale invitations to the Lord to come into our hearts? 
We surrender all; invite Him to make Himself at home; 
give Him the keys, tell iHim we yield to Him our whole 





210 


MODERN THESES 


benig; and when He takes us at our word it is not 
long before He notices the tell-tale wince as He probes 
the secret chambers of our hearts and is pained that 
our lips show the love our hearts do not contain; that 
we love in word and tongue and not in deed and truth. 

HE IS LORD OF OUR BODIES: 

“Ye are not your own; therefore glorify God in your 
bodies and spirits which are God’s.” The body is for 
the Lord. He has chosen it as a temple of the Holy 
Ghost; as the instrument through which to manifest the 
life of His Son; we must abstain from fleshly lusts 
which war against the spirit; whatsoever we do whether 
we eat or drink we are to do all to the glory of God, 
eating only that kind and amount of food; and drinking 
that kind and amount of drink which does not harm the 
temple of the Holy Ghost; using all of its functions in 
moderation, avoiding excess. It takes a deep degree of 
consecration to hold all the powers of our bodies sacred 
to the Lordship of Jesus, a deeper degree than many 
suppose. 

He is Lord of our minds: the realm of the thought 
life where He would cast down every high and lofty 
thought which would exalt itself against the knowledge 
of God; He commands the wicked to forsake his ways 
and the unrighteous man to forsake his thoughts and 
commands the sinner to cleanse his hands and the double 
minded man to purify his heart. Our thought life is the 
index of our characters: “As a man thinketh in his heart 
so is he.” The thought and look of lust as much need 
cleansing as the act of adultery. It is in the realm of 




MODERN THESES 


211 


the mind that Satan works as the god of this world, 
blinding the minds of those who obey not the gospel, 
vainly puffing up the fleshly mind in defiance of God, 
whom, when they know Him as God, they glorify Him 
not but worship and serve the creature rather than the 
Creator, who is blessed forever. 

He is Lord of all our means: ‘Whosoever he be of 
you that forsaketh not all that he hath he can not be my 
disciple.” He is not Lord of a fractional one-tenth. 
“He is Lord of All.” Acts 10:44. Everything is held 
subservient to His ownership. Whatsoever He saith 
unto us we do it. We keep not back even a part of the 
price. We give as He prospers us (First Corinthians 
16:2). The earth is the Lord’s not the landlord’s; the 
cattle are His and unless we be cattle-thieves we do not 
place our brand on His cattle; the fowls of the heavens 
are His; the beasts of the field are His and the wealth 
in the earth; we consent to His ownership of all. And 
yet we do not live in fear of His ownership. He no 
more takes advantage of His surrendered children than 
the right parent would oppress submissive children. 
Whatever He demands is a joy. Those who refuse His 
Lordship of means are saving for the Man of Sin! 

He is the Lord of our Talents and Sphere of Life 
Service: If He claims us for Missions we do not choose 
the law or business or the lecture platform or any pro¬ 
fession ; if evangelism afield, we will not settle down in 
the pastorate; if preaching we will not take the financial 
agency. 

Christ is the Head of the Church as the husband 
is the head of the wife—at least it used to be so with 
the old-fashioned woman. Times have changed and the 




212 


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modern woman aspires to be head of the state, the hus¬ 
band, home, and all else. But it is the reversal of God’s 
order, who imposed submission to the husband on the 
part of the wife. Man is the type of Christ and woman 
the type of the Church; when she takes the lead, and 
usurps the headship, she is out of Divine order, and 
becomes the type of the Head, or Christ, of which, scrip- 
turally, man is the type. We speak here of believers. 
So far as the unsaved are concerned, the curse of the 
fall is still upon the woman in that—her desire shall be 
to her husband and he shall rule over her. In this con¬ 
nection let us not overlook the admonition of the Scrip¬ 
tures—“Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the 
Church, and gave Himself for it.” Christ’s love for the 
Church is a great, overwhelming love, unfathomable in 
its tender, watchful, loyalty. 

One of the flagrant signs of the approaching end of 
the age is the fulfilling of the prophecy that in the last 
days women will usurp authority over the man. Surely, 
in the light of this prophecy alone, we see plainly that 
the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 

In connection with this subject we are reminded 
of the story of the man who drove up to a house and 
asked a weazened little man—^How is everybody?” 
The little man piped back—“Oh, she’s alright.” 

Finally there is a fearful penalty for the rejection 
of Jesus as Lord. 

“But those mine enemies which would not that I 
should reign (rule) over them, bring hither, and slay 
them before Me.” Luke 19:27. 




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213 


The Lord's Promise to Remove the Stony Heart 

CHAPTER XVII 
THE STONY HEART 

. . . . And I will take away the stony heart 

out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” 
Ezekiel 36:26. 

The text describes both the hardest thing in the 
world and the most difficult surgical operation. Nothing 
is harder than the stony heart in man; nothing more 
unreasonable; nothing more unresponsive to pity and 
sympathy: the stony heart is hard, unfeeling, unrespon¬ 
sive, unyielding to the law of God and in itself it is im¬ 
possible of betterment. The only remedy Jehovah has 
for it is Removal, Elimination, Taking Away. Like 
the carnal mind; “it is not subject to the law of God,” 
Paul wrote “neither indeed, can be”; it is enmity to 
God; it cannot please God; its promptings bring death. 
It is the affliction of religious people. Paul wrote of its 
synonym: “Take heed (warning) therefore brethren (it 
is the affliction of Christian brethren) lest there be in 
(it is an inside affliction) any of you an evil heart of 
unbelief in departing from the living God (it is prone 
to leave God)—from this Scripture doubtless the poets 
got the idea of the “prone to wander” condition of the 
heart. 

The text also describes the most difficult surgical 
operation in the world. We read and hear of truly mar¬ 
velous feats of surgical skill—the removal of one lung 
and the patient lives: the removal of a kidney; cancer, 





214 


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tumor, appendix; of blood transfusion and of skin graft¬ 
ing,—radium treatment, and other remarkable feats of 
surgical skill but we never read or hear of a major 
operation on the heart. We read one account of a minor 
operation on the heart—the repairing of the thin outer 
cover with minor stitches and the latest report said the 
patient was doing well. But no where in the universe 
has any one had his heart removed and another put in 
its place and survived the ordeal. Our text is figurative 
but it illustrates the difficulty and delicacy of the opera¬ 
tion Jehovah is to perform for us. He can do what no 
surgeon has the temerity to do, perform this delicate 
operation so that we survive the ordeal—take one out, 
the stony heart, and place another in its stead, the 
fleshly heart and we live on without the miss of a heart 
beat. 

We repeat that the stony heart is the affliction of 
the religious man. The Lord Jehovah is the authority 
for the statement. Several “Thus saith the Lord’s” pre¬ 
cede the text. Its removal is His own volitional act. 
We wish in this study to avoid as far as possible the 
dogmatic statements of men of all schools and cling 
closely to the Word of Jehovah. Th e promise is speci¬ 
fically applied to Israel when God shall restore, forgive, 
cleanse from all her idols, renew, remove the stony 
heart and give the heart of flesh, filled with God’s Holy 
Spirit. We love to think that Jehovah has nothing for 
Israel in the Millenium He will not now confer on the 
fully redeemed soul. They will have the filling with 
the Spirit and that is our promise now and that Spirit, 
in all dispensations, brings the hearts of men to sub¬ 
mission to God’s will for the rule of life. 




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215 


We were once preaching in a camp meeting about 
the Lordship of Christ and my co-worker said if we had 
what we preached we would give to him a fine novelty- 
handle pen-knife we had. We handed him the knife, 
and after a while he came back to the tent and said, “I 
have what I preach and I cannot keep your knife.” If 
we have the Spirit of Christ now our brothers’ interests 
are as safe in our hands as in his own. We do not think 
God will do for Israel in the next dispensation, what He 
would not gladly do for the real Christian in this; if 
they are fully surrendered to His Lordship. 

We rejoice in the fact that while a Scripture pas¬ 
sage has one interpretation, it has many applications, 
and while we look forward to Israel’s restoration and 
earthly blessings in the near future, we are not unmind¬ 
ful that these things were written for our admonition. 

A NEW HEART PRECEDES THE REMOVAL OF 
THE STONY HEART 

A Divine gift of a new heart precedes the Divine 
work of removal of the stony heart in the order of the 
text: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new 
spirit will I put within you,” then follows the promise 
to remove the stony heart. Something manifestly defi¬ 
nite precedes the work of elimination. Far be it from 
any to say that Jehovah can not take out of the human 
heart all that Satan put in it That is to make Satan 
greater than God! The gift of a new heart is identical 
with regeneration or the impartation of spiritual life 
and synonymous with the birth of the Spirit without 
which a man cannot see the kingdom of God. The new 





216 


MODERN THESES 


heart, which precedes the elimination of the stony heart 
is a gift from Jehovah—“A new heart also will I give 
you and a new spirit will I put within you.” Someone 
says in justification and regeneration, the Lord gives 
us something which we never had, whereas in sanctifi¬ 
cation, or the removal of the stony heart, He takes away 
from us something we always had. The Lord gives us 
a new heart; He gives us a new spirit: He takes away 
from us the stony heart! and the fact that Jehovah says 
several times in the immediate context that He will do 
this for Israel, is sufficient evidence that it is in the heart 
remaining side by side with the new heart He gives, 
and not removed by the gift of the new heart or by 
growth or any other process but the exercise of the 
omnipotent power of Jehovah who says He will do this 
not for Israel’s sake, but for His Own Name’s Sake 
which was in derision and reproach among the heathen 
round about because of the hardness of Israel’s heart 
and consequent dullness of mind in comprehending His 
will. 

JEHOVAH HIMSELF IS EXALTED ABOVE 
THE WORK 

The work is done for His Own Name’s Sake, which 
Name was profaned among the heathen; again He re¬ 
peats, “I had pity for mine holy name” and “I will 
sanctify my great name”, “And the heathen shall know 
that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be 
sanctified in you before their eyes.” Not, primarily, 
when He works a work in Israel or takes the stony heart 
out of them, but when He Himself is sanctified in them 




MODERN THESES 


217 


—A Person indwelling them as their sanctification. 
Lest, like the Socinians, we greatly magnify His Person 
as fairer than the sons of men, and eulogize all His per¬ 
fections and minimize His works, He shortly adds that 
synchronous with His being sanctified in them, there 
is a work of removal accomplished: “I will take the 
stony heart out of your flesh.” 

Let us not so magnify the beauties of Jesus that 
we conceal the works which He does in us, the accom¬ 
plishing of which is not always pleasant to the natural 
man—the purging of the heart unto greater fruitfulness; 
the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning; the 
cutting off of the right arm and the plucking out of the 
right eye; the forsaking of all we have; the leaving all 
to follow Him, etc. 

Because He is exalted above His works is no war¬ 
rant to minimize His works. There are things which 
accompany salvation: With Him he freely gives us ail 
things. Overemphasis of some particular phase of truth 
is the trouble with us all and we are not willing to see 
truth in its proper perspective; to recognize the value of 
the other fellow’s emphasis. One faction greatly exalts 
His Personality and with it sometimes make light of the 
definite works He accomplishes in the heart. They say 
it is He! Himself! He is all in all! Wonderful truth! 
But there is another side. “He doeth it” Paul wrote. 
It is both Him and it. “The God of peace Himself sanc¬ 
tify you wholly . . . faithful is He that calleth 

you who also will do it.” Scripture reveals the Worker 
and the work; The Blesser and the blessing; the Source 
from whence the things which accompany salvation 
flow and the things which accompany salvation; the 




218 


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Builder of the house and the house; Jehovah sanctified 
in the heart and the stony heart removed; He who sanc- 
tifieth and they who are sanctified; the Sanctifier and 
sanctification; the Benefactor and the benefits; Christ 
appearing unto Paul revealing things to him and prom¬ 
ising to reveal other things unto him, all of which 
things He was to bear witness to; and then again the 
Spirit revealing Jesus unto the disciples and (He shall 
testify of Me, He shall glorify Me) yet he had many 
things to say unto them and the Spirit also would 
show them things to come, things that are Mine He 
would take, and “show them unto you”; also the 
context reveals several times Jehovah referring to His 
Indwelling them and the removal of this stony heart and 
that He the Lord had spoken It and would do It and 
that finally He would be inquired of by the house of 
Israel concerning this to do it for them. So those who 
magnify Him much above His works are right and 
wrong; and those who magnify it much and say little 
about Him are right and wrong: the happy medium is, 
like Paul, to say, “He doeth It.” Those who say so 
much of Him need to sit at the feet of those who are so 
adept in description of what He doeth; and those who 
say so much of It need to sit at the feet of those who 
magnify Him to learn of Him who doeth it. 

FUTILE METHODS OF RELIEF 

The stony heart is incapable of improvement: God 
will not help man in his schemes to get victory over it 
by culture; after its highest culture it is still the same 
old stony heart; no amount of science, civilization or 




MODERN THESES 


219 


culture can change the stony heart. It may be organ¬ 
ized and given lofty names but it is still the unchanged 
stone; transfer it—it is a transferred stone; re-name it 
and it is yet as hard as adamant; post-graduate it in in¬ 
stitutions of highest learning and it is still the unrespon¬ 
sive stone; give it dramatic art, interpretative dancing 
and teach it gracefulness and then tap it and see that 
it has not been softened by all the processes; it is more 
to be dreaded than poor taste or grammar. Go on with 
the efforts to change it: polish it, paint it, name it, bap¬ 
tize it, catechise it, confirm it, commune it, join it to the 
church, immerse it, sprinkle it, receive it into the society 
on probation, or in full standing; go through the pre¬ 
tense of conversion with it and it is, on examination, a 
hard, unfeeling, unreasoning, unsympathetic stone. It 
can not be cured by veneering it or by poulticing it; 
the veneer will not stand under the test and the poultice 
will not draw. My wife once told me that a carbuncle on 
my neck was healed. I said, “It is not”—she said, “It is”; 
I said, “It isn’t”, and she said, “It is, don’t contradict 
me because you cannot see back of your head,” and I 
said, “I know I can’t, but I can feel the back of my 
head. The inflammation is not gone yet. When it is 
healed there will be no inflammation and pain.” That is 
how you can tell when the stony heart has been removed 
according to the promise of Jehovah,—the inflammation 
and the pain is gone. 

SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

The Stony Heart is Unsympathetic: Some one says 
the only place you will find sympathy is in the diction- 




220 


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ary and that one-half of the world is dying for the lack 
of sympathy and the other half is dying because it does 
not give the needed sympathy. The stony heart is cold 
and passionless, not warm with love, pity and sympathy. 
That word sympathy means to suffer with others; it is 
a close relative of compassion. Christ was moved with 
compassion on the shepherdless multitude and when our 
stony heart is removed we find, with the incoming of 
the heart of flesh, a tender pitiful sympathy for all man¬ 
kind in all their burdens. The stony heart is selfish and 
not generous to friend, foe or God; the heart of flesh 
is generous and large-hearted to a fault and, as an old 
woman said, “givish”. I have met three men who claim 
to be entirely consecrated and wholly sanctified, each 
of whom said to me that they could as easily give God a 
thousand-dollar check as turn their hand over “If they 
saw fit to do it!” What kind of language is this from 
those who are not their own? Who belong to another? 
It is surely not the language of entire consecration for 
the entirely consecrated soul sees fit to do whatever God 
shows him to do and he fears not to do it for—“to Him 
that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is 
sin.” 

The stony heart is Unsubmissive, unbending, un¬ 
yielding, it does not gladly welcome the searching truth 
which would make it free; it is unspiritual, not subject 
to the law of God and cannot be. It is unfair! Why 
should a man who is supposed to be free from it have 
a struggle to be fair and generous; to do right; to re¬ 
ceive truth; to walk in the light; to adjust himself to 
the ever-increasing demands of advancing light? to 
give of his means to be fair with God and man? It 




MODERN THESES 


221 


lacks comprehension of the things which please God. 
The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib 
but this people do not know: the Lord raised them up 
as his children and they rebelled against Him—they 
were taken up with that which is not of God wherein 
He delighted not; they could not enter into fellowship 
with His sufferings. 

The Lord has no use for the stony heart or He 
would not take it away and our great need is to recog¬ 
nize that there is something to be taken away after the 
impartation of the new heart and new spirit. 

He will not make the discovery to all of us in the 
same way but He will sooner or later make its presence 
known to us; it may be by the revelation to us of our 
besetting sin of remaining unbelief; or as a quality of 
nature or disturbing element; or a sense of unutterable 
hunger to be filled with righteousness; as a Danish 
friend aptly expressed it: “I have the conviction of an 
unfulfilled longing”; or it may be a consciousness of 
needed cleansing; or of a wrong thought-life. Wesley 
called it sin in believers and Murray said that the be¬ 
liever must confess that he is yet in the carnal state. Fin¬ 
ney said, “There must come a terribly searching applica¬ 
tion of the law of God to the heart and conscience of the 
believer before he can enter into the enjoyment of the 
higher life of sanctification.” The need may be discov¬ 
ered by the consciousness of remaining carnal pride as 
with Dr. Coke who thought he had in his justification the 
removal of the stony heart. Riding along in the stage 
coach a fellow-traveler fainted and Dr. Coke was dis¬ 
patched to the .spring near by for water to revive the man. 
On reaching the spring he discovered there was no vessel 




222 


MODERN THESES 


to carry the water in and not wishing to spoil his new 
beaver hat with its customary embroidered rose, he 
returned to the coach without the water. Looking at 
him in dismay another occupant of the coach asked him 
why he did not bring the water and receiving his reply 
with indignation rushed to the spring and dipped his 
own fine beaver hat into the spring, filled it and re¬ 
turned to the stricken man, and, dashing the water into 
his face, he was soon resuscitated. Dr. Coke, through 
this incident, discovered the remaining heart of stone. 

The soul should pray for the Lord to reveal the 
stony heart, for, when the disease is recognized, the 
battle is half won. The government has a receiving 
teller in the Treasury Building who will receive our 
dirty, worn, germ-covered bills and give, in their place, 
new, clean, crisp bills that were never before in circula¬ 
tion. The Lord will receive our old stony hearts and 
give us hearts of flesh in their stead, thank God! 

SOME CONTRASTS 


Stony Heart which God 
will take away is: 
Unwise 
Unbelieving 
Unable 
Unkind 
Unforgiving 
Prayerless 

Ungracious 

Discourteous 


Heart of Flesh which He 
will give is: 

(Wise 
Believing 
Able thru grace 
Kind 

Forgiving 

Prayerful—spirit of 
prayer 
Gracious 
Courteous to all 




MODERN THESES 


223 


Unloving 

(Loving 

Joyless 

Joyful 

Unbecoming 

As becometh saints 

Un Chris tlike 

Christlike—a copy, 
Lord of thine 

Undiscerning 

Discerning 

Ungenerous 

Generous to a fault 

Unready 

Ready 

Unsubmissive 

Submissive 

Unwilling 

Willing 

Unyielded 

Yielded and still 

Unspiritual 

Spiritual 

Unknowing 

Knowing 

Unseemly 

Seemly 

Unthankful 

Thankful 


The stony heart is negative—the heart of flesh is 
positive—possessing all the qualities the other lacks. 

FINALLY, 

Notice the text: word for word— 

j—Jehovah, the great I Am with whom nothing is im¬ 
possible—Who speaks and it is done, Who 
commands and it stands fast—He has power to 
take out of the human heart all that Satan has 
put within it, or He is not God. 

WILL—Denotes action or determination of the speaker 
to perform something definite. It is the direct 
opposite of passivity. 

TAKE—That is, seize, secure: God assumes charge of 
the stony heart. 





224 


MODERN THESES 


AWAY—That means to remove or convey: it implies 
absence, not presence. 

THE STONY HEART—That is the definite, specific 
objective of this determination of the Father’s 
will. 

OUT OF—That means out not in and is as definite as 
to the change of location of the stony heart as 
the promise is clear as to the place where Jeho¬ 
vah puts the heart of flesh—I will give you a 
heart of flesh in which I will put my Spirit. 

Linking these words together, we find that God 
promises and is determined, by a definite act of His 
Sovereign will, to seize the stony heart which is in us, 
secure it and convey it at a distance so that it will be 
absent, removed, outside of us, not in, and that God will 
thoroughly do this work. While recognizing that this 
removal does not preclude the impossibility of sinning, 
nor infallibility of judgment, nor exemption from mis¬ 
take, nor from temptation, nor freedom from infirmity, 
yet it comprises what God has provided for us in Christ. 
There is no room here for a partial work or the suppres¬ 
sion of the stone; or for more victory over it while it 
still indwells us, but its utter complete removal, elimina¬ 
tion and carting away to the regions of the unknown 
and while the term eradication is not used here, it is 
implied. 

This operation is preceded by the gift of a new 
heart and followed by a positive work of elimination of 
the stony heart and work of infilling: “I will put my 
Spirit in you”—(this may be synchronous (at the same 
time) or subsequent to the removal of the stony heart) 
and cause you to walk in and keep and do my command- 




MODERN THESES 


225 


merits. Bishop Warne says of thousands of his converts 
in India that this is their procedure: They are first justi¬ 
fied and then sanctified and then they tarry for the Holy 
Ghost. How little the procedure matters so that they 
are full of the Spirit of God and manifest His fruitful¬ 
ness in all goodness and righteousness and truth, prov¬ 
ing what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of 
God. The writer once greatly grieved the Lord for 
rebuking a good brother who gave ninety percent of his 
income to the Lord and prayed hundreds of souls into 
victory, because we rebuked him for saying that he was 
first justified and then regenerated, then sanctified and 
then baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire. Many who 
condemned the way he told his experience, had it per¬ 
fectly straight according to the Wesleyan conception of 
the second-work, but they were woefully short on the 
fruit of the Spirit in life, some being lovers of money 
and married to the second wife while the first was alive. 




226 


MODERN THESES 


“The indwelling of God in Christ is the only satisfactory 
answer of His amazing character /’ Philip Schaff. 

“The groundwork of His character was the most in¬ 
timate and uninterrupted union and communion with His 
Heavenly Father, from whom He derived, to whom He re¬ 
ferred, everything. — Ibid. 

“His self-consciousness was at every moment condition¬ 
ed, animated, and impregnated by the consciousness of God/' 

“People want to know the truth. The dilemna of many 
souls is; 

“What is there in Christianity which can be laid hold of 
and made to serve one in the practical difficulties and com¬ 
plexities of modern life?" The answer is, not anything in 
the system called Christianity itself but there is every¬ 
thing in the Person of Christ who offers us the secret of 
His own life and life in Himself even as He lived His own 
life through Another dwelling in Him, doing for Him what 
He in His voluntary humiliation as man could not do for 
himself. 




MODERN THESES 


227 


The Master's Reason for His Life 

CHAPTER XVIII 
Text: John 6:57 

“As the living Father sent me, and I live by 
the Father (R. V. because of the Father) : so he 
that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” 

(R. V. because of Me). 

If we unduly magnify Christ’s Divinity, we obscure 
His Humanity. If we over-emphasize His humanity, 
we obstruct the vision of His Divinity. He was both 
human and divine. He was the Son of Man and the Son 
of God, at the same time. As Son of Man He was sub¬ 
ject to, and entirely dependent on the Father, and 
apparently limited in His judgment, knowledge, author¬ 
ity, guidance, work, mission, words, doctrines, greatness, 
and teaching: “I do nothing of myself: but as 
my Father hath taught me, I speak these things/’ 
Of His judgment, he said: It is true; for I am not alone, 
but I and the Father that sent me. Of the limitation 
of His knowledge in His humanity He said, of His sec¬ 
ond coming, that no man knew, nor the angels, not even 
the Son, but of that day and hour His Father only knew. 
Concerning the limitations of |His authority, when in 
the flesh he frankly confessed that it was not in !His 
power to grant the request of the ambitious mother for 
her two sons that they might occupy the most exalted 
seats by God’s throne—“It shall be given those for whom 
it is prepared of my Father.” Of His guidance by the 
Father it is said—“He must needs go thru Samaria”; 




228 


MODERN THESES 


concerning His presence at the feast, He said—“Go ye 
up to this feast: I go not yet up to this feast; for My 
time (to go to the cross) is not yet full come.” These 
are intimations that He moved about from place to place 
as guided by Another. Of His work He said—“I do the 
works of my Father”; of His mission—“He sent me, 1 
came not of myself”: of the words, “the Father dwelling 
in me speaks the words”; of the doctrine He taught, “My 
doctrine is not mine but His that sent Me”: “My Father 
hath taught me these things.” His greatness as man 
was reflected, derived from another so indwelling Him 
that to see Christ was not to see JHim but the One in¬ 
dwelling Him; to believe on Him was not to believe on 
Him but on Him that sent Him; for “My Father is 
greater than I.” The secret of His victory as Man was 
the indwelling of His Father and He recommends to us 
the same secret for the solution of our problems—His 
indwelling—“I live because of the Father indwelling Me, 
live ye because of Me, because of my indwelling your 
hearts by faith.” Oh, that we would take the lesson 
from Him ! “I do nothing of myself!” “The Son can do 
nothing of Himself!” “I am not sufficient of myself to 
think, speak, act, judge, or do; Another, the Father, does 
all for Me.” 

As Son of God He was One with the Father, with 
all power and authority in heaven and on earth; with 
all wisdom and omniscence. As Son of Man He 
humbled Himself to partake of our nature and bodily 
limitations; came the lowly way of all the earth, with 
humbler nativity than the poorest; He was subject to 
the laws of growth, infancy, childhood, boyhood, man¬ 
hood, needing food and drink for sustenance and growth, 




MODERN THESES 


229 


as we. He hungered and was weary at the well; rested 
there, fell asleep in the boat from exhaustion. He had 
His rest periods apart in the desert, away from the 
multitude. He needed the strength that came from 
prayer, fellowship and communion with God, as other 
men, to maintain His life of victory. 

As Son of God He had power to heal the sick and 
raise the dead; cast out devils and to forgive sins on 
earth; power to lay His life down and power to take it 
up again. As Son of Man He exhibited all the lowly 
dependence on His Father God and humble submission 
to Him, so becoming to the creature. 

As the Captain of our salvation He was made per¬ 
fect thru suffering, and ‘‘in that He suffered being 
tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted”— 
being “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” 

As Son of Man He had many of the experiences 
common to all. He could make the words of David His 
own: “Come near and hear, all ye that fear God and I 
will declare what He hath done for my soul.” He would 
not minimize experience; it has its place. Experience 
is not, however, the reason for His victory. 

CHRIST’S EXPERIENCES 

He was born of the Spirit—not as you and I must 
be born of the Spirit in regeneration, the impartation of 
spiritual life; He always had that; but He was literally 
conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Spirit, 
doubtless in painless labor. He testified of the birth of 
the Spirit for Himself and His disciples in His conver¬ 
sation with Nicodemus: “We speak that we do know and 




230 


MODERN THESES 


testify that we have seen” concerning the topic of His 
conversation, the birth of the Spirit. He at first uses 
the singular number, personal pronoun, “I”, and con¬ 
cludes with the plural number, personal pronoun, “We”, 
acting as spokesman for the disciples, they having 
doubtless come on the scene sometime after he began to 
talk with Nicodemus. 

He had the experience of water baptism at the 
hands of John the Baptist, who in pious humiliation at 
first refused to baptise one so pure, confessing His need 
of Christ’s baptism, but ultimately yielding to Christ’s 
will. It is true that Christ does not make so much of 
this water experience as do so many in our day, never 
after referring to it. Nevertheless, it is given passing 
notice. 

He also had, in the pathway of obedience, the 
anointing with the Holy Spirit. He was not anointed of 
the Spirit the same as we are, but truly anointed with 
the Spirit. We must receive the Spirit under the sym¬ 
bol, type or figure of fire or water, because of our need 
of His purifying agencies. But Jesus, having no sin to 
be dealt with, receives the Spirit under the symbol of a 
mild, gentle dove. It is significant for us that He did 
not properly or fully enter on His Father’s work until 
after His anointing. Neither should we enter upon His 
work without the baptism of power sanctifying us and 
making us fit for the Master’s use. 

He had the experience of sinlessness: “Which of 
you convinceth me of sin?” He never assumed the atti¬ 
tude of a sinner before God; he never asked for forgive¬ 
ness ; He never sought pardon for a thought or word or 
act. Synonymous with His sinlessness was His con- 




MODERN THESES 


231 


sciousness of perfect sanctification: “Say ye of Him 
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, 
thou blasphemest; because I said I am the Son of God?” 
This is not sanctification as applied to the creature, the 
purification from sin; that, He never needed. It is sanc¬ 
tification in the sense of the dedication of Himself to 
the redemption of others. “For their sakes I sanctify 
myself/’ Those claiming sanctification as the destruc¬ 
tion of sin, need also to keep this phase of His type of 
sanctification in mind: the unselfish phase of it—for the 
sake of others—We have made light of those who stop 
with a definition of sanctification as mere consecration 
for service; service is not greater than holiness and can¬ 
not be a substitute for it; but we need a greater con¬ 
ception of continuous service equal to the capacity of 
each as an inseparable concomitant and outflow of real 
Bible sanctification! 

He had the experience of supernaturalism in the 
highest degree. By the finger of God He cast out devils. 
With Him it was not paramount but subordinate. He 
had no theories of power, but the power—all power was 
given unto Him in heaven and on earth. The way He 
demonstrated it in healing the sick and exorcism of 
demons for the possessed, and in quieting stormy seas, 
walking on waves, turning water into wine and in feed¬ 
ing the multitudes, is known to all. But He did not feed 
on, and live by His acquaintance with, and exercise of 
supernaturalism. He drew His life from a higher source 
—“I live because of the Father.”—faith in the Father. 
He taught the disciples that to do the work of God they 
must believe on Him who sent Him, and He fulfilled 





232 


MODERN THESES 


His teaching in His own work, working by faith in 
Another. 

We find also evidences of minute Divine Guidance 
in the Master’s movements. “I go to Jerusalem”; “I go 
not yet up to the feast”, “Mine hour is not yet full 
come”; “I must go to other towns for therefore am I 
sent.” Concerning His trip thru Samaria it is said that 
—“He must needs go thru Samaria.” That illustrates 
how He was guided by His Father so that He was ever 
at the time and in the very place, meeting the very 
people His Father willed. His movements show sub¬ 
jection to the will of Another; He was guided not only 
in His movements, but in His words and works. 

Other outstanding experiences reveal perfect 
unity with His Father: “I and My Father are One.” 
Companionship and fellowship: “The Father hath not 
left me alone.” Knowledge of the Father: “I have 
known Thee.” Sonship: “I am the Son of God.” Again, 
He calls God His Father—“My Father.” Divine appro¬ 
bation: “I do always those things that please Him.” 
This was confirmed further by the Father’s own voice: 
“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, 
hear ye Him.” He also had the experience of constantlv 
answered prayer: “Thou hearest Me always.” 

One final fact in His life was the reproach of men: 
“The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on 
me.” For His Father’s sake He was willing to be the 
“sign that should everywhere be spoken against.” He 
was the Stone on whom many, hitherto antagonistic, 
seeing the futility of throwing themselves against God, 
fell, and were broken. He testified that the world hated 
Him for His unflinching testimony to its evil; they 




MODERN THESES 


233 


called Him Beelzebub, they said He was mad and had 
a devil —yea, was the very Prince of devils; all this He 
suffered for His devotion to His Father. Although He 
said, “they have persecuted me”, He did not glory in 
His reproach, but only in His Father. 

As He did not live by His experiences, neither did 
He live by the numerous systems of His day. There 
were at least twenty different parties, religious, philo¬ 
sophic, dietetic, reform, Pharisaical, Saduceean, Essen- 
iac, Herodian, etc., from none of whom did the Son of 
God draw any inspiration. He ignored them all; neither 
did He live by their endless traditions, one of the parties 
having as many as six hundred and thirteen; nor yet 
by their peculiar doctrinal tenets; or by the rituatlistic 
form of worship of the day was His life sustained; 
although He went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath 
Day, as His custom was, still He ever drew His life 
from fellowship with the invisible Father. Is there not 
here an example for us to look higher than to the selfish 
parties of our time for our life, and live because of the 
Son, as He lived because of the Father? And yet we 
would not suggest the forsaking of the assembling of 
ourelves together as the manner of some is, but caution 
against substituting churchianity with its professed 
means of grace, for grace. “'We should neither neglect 
nor trust the means of grace”, Wesley wrote. 

Christ did not live by the ordinances, although He 
instituted them. He enjoyed fellowship with His dis¬ 
ciples in the Eucharist; He perfected the Passover from 
a mere protection to a love feast; He washed His dis¬ 
ciples' feet, and some claim that this is an ordinance and 
is to be observed equally with the communion of the 




234 


MODERN THESES 


Lord’s Supper: with whom we have no quarrel, our 
object is to point out that though He instituted and 
participated in the ordinances, He did not exalt them as 
we do, often as substitutes for life, thru which we often 
draw externally nigh to God, while internally our 
hearts are far from Him, as the prophet wrote, they still 
go out after their covetousness. 

Finally, the immediate context says, concerning the 
Master’s method of victory thru a Person, “It is a hard 
saying, who can bear it?” My reader, is it a hard say¬ 
ing to you too, that zeal for systems, doctrines, religious 
cliques, sects, parties, organizations, movements, works, 
all are insufficient, inherently, to communicate and per¬ 
petuate life; that we must emulate the example of Jesus 
and look higher; that we must draw our real life from 
Him who is true bread and true meat; that we must 
speak His words and do His works and manifest His 
Name? If not, we shall find that He will share with us 
the secret to the full, of His life of victory, sending us 
in His Name as the Father sent Him in His Name, 
teaching us as the Father taught Him; speaking in us 
as the Father spake thru Him; illuminating our judg¬ 
ment as the Father illuminated His—“The meek will He 
guide in judgment”: sharing with us Divine Guidance— 
He shall direct our paths: answering our prayers as the 
Father answered His always: working with us and con¬ 
firming our words with signs following, as the Father 
confirmed His words; working thru us works of deliv¬ 
erance, as the Father worked thru Him, and though it 
may test our faith, promising even greater works, if we 
believe; sustaining us by His companionship as He was 
cheered by the Father’s—“The Father has not left me 




MODERN THESES 


235 


alone.”—“Lo I am with you always, even unto the end 
of the agegiving us victory over Satan, as the Father 
rebuked Satan for Jesus: “The Lord said to Satan, 'The 
Lord rebuke thee, Satan.”—Zech. 2:3. Heal by Him as 
He healed by the Father; be one with Him as He was 
one with the Father; suffer with Him and for Him as 
He suffered for the sake of His Father; sustaining us 
by His friendship as He was sustained by the friendship 
of His Father, sharing with us the things He hears of 
the Father; delighting to do His will as His meat was 
to do the Father’s will; glorifying His Person as !He 
glorified the Person of the Father; conscious of our 
utter inability to do anything apart from Him, as He 
said—“The Son can do nothing of Himself”, affirming 
repeatedly His inability to do anything without the 
Father. In the face of this amazing example of the Son 
of God, will we ever boast again of our strength to think 
or do anything of ourselves?—that we are determined 
to go through?—that the flesh profiteth anything? We 
can, however, rejoice exceedingly that we can do all 
things thru CHRIST who strengtheneth us. 

Christ tried to point out to the man who called Him 
“Good”, that unless he believed that He was “God mani¬ 
fest in the flesh” and that “in Him dwelleth all the ful¬ 
ness of the God-Head bodily”, he had no right to call 
Him “Good.” 

When Jesus let the disciples into the secret of His 
marvelous life many of them on hearing it, said, “This is 
hard to take in! Who can listen to talk like this?” 

. . . After that, many of his disciples drew back 

and would not associate with him any longer.” Moffatt 
Translation Jno. :6:60-67. 




236 


MODERN THESES 


The reason for the Master’s unique life is not in¬ 
volved ; it need not be arrived at by a process of intricate 
reasoning; all the logic of the why and wherefore is 
comprehended in a single word—a Person, “I live 
because of the Father! 

“But perhaps the most decisive mark of the truly 
crucified man is, that he is crucified even to holiness 
itself. That is to say, he desires God only, is satisfied 
and can be satisfied with God only, in distinction from 
those truly spiritual gifts or graces, which God by His 
Holy Spirit imparts to the soul. The truly devout man, 
for instance, exercises penitence, submission, gratitude, 
forgiveness, and other Christian graces on their appro¬ 
priate occasions; and he has great reason to be thankful 
to God that he is enabled to do it. But if in some mom¬ 
ent of forgetfulness, or unguardedness, he turns the 
thoughts and interests of his heart from God to the 
graces which God gives, and begins to take complacency 
in his religious exercises, and to be happy in his holiness 
and to love his holiness, instead of a fixed and exclusive 
love for the Author of his holiness, I think we may con¬ 
fidently say, he is no longer a man dead to self, no 
longer in the proper sense of the term a man inwardly 
crucified. ‘The purer our gifts are’, says Fenelon, ‘the 
more jealous God is of our appropriating or directing 
them to ourselves. The most eminent graces are the 
most deadly poisons, if we rest in them and regard them 
with complacency. It is the sin of the fallen angels. 
They turned to themselves and ‘kept not their first 
estate but left their own habitation.’ At that instant 
they fell from heaven and became the enemies of God.’ ” 




MODERN THESES 


237 


Christianity—a Manifestation of the Spirit of 
Christ 

CHAPTER XIX 

Christianity thus defined is rare enough in the 
earth. Many secondary things pass with the uninitiated 
as substitutes for Christianity, which have little relation 
to the pure Christianity of Christ. The simplest defini¬ 
tion of a Christian is “one who follows Christ/’ As the 
Buddhist follows Buddha and the Confucianist follows 
the teachings of Confucius and a Taoist follows Taoism 
and a Mohammedan follows Mohammed and a Mormon 
Mormonism and the Christian Scientist follows the 
teachings of Mrs. Eddy, likewise a Christian follows 
Christ. This was what Christ said. “If a man will be 
my disciple let him follow Me.” As Christ followed a 
Person, His Father and was on more intimate terms 
with Him than He was with the Systems of His day 
which were not in fellowship with His Father, so the 
Elect, the Christian will be on more intimate terms with 
Christ than he will be with all the activities of the sys¬ 
tems of this day. Fellowship with Christ will be more 
easy than harmony with all the activities of the systems. 
For as some one has said “The Ghurchianity of the 
Twentieth Century is not the Christianity of Christ and 
the Apostles: It is both a misinterpretation and conse¬ 
quently a misrepresentation.” 

There are many commendable things in the Church 
organization and world w J hich fall short of meeting the 
test of Christianity— 

From the emphasis placed on raising money to 




238 


MODERN THESES 


finance New Era movements, one would think that 
money was a big desideratum in the kingdom of Christ. 
Such is far from the fact: money is secondary. Christ 
was without funds at tax paying time: He died a 
pauper: He never put on a financial drive; He never 
passed the plate or took up a collection or made appeals 
for money. All of His needs were supplied by the vol¬ 
untary love contributions of those to whom He minis¬ 
tered. He said the great consideration was to seek 
first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness and 
all of the secondary things would be added unto us. 
Unlike the present itch for money in the church today, 
the leaders of the early church told men who thought 
to ingratiate themselves in the church, to perish with 
their money. “Because thou hast thought to buy the 
gift of God with money.” The early Church was volun¬ 
tary in its stewardship. They brought the money and 
laid it at the apostle’s feet. There is the record of the 
death of two prominent liars who said they were loyal 
in stewardship while they were keeping back part of the 
price of a complete consecration. The twofold conse¬ 
cration we hear so much of in our day, one tenth of our 
substance and one seventh of our time was not the con¬ 
secration in vogue in the early church where the spirit 
of the community of goods was the order: it is not the 
consecration He who is Lord of all desires, and who says 
we are not our own but are bought with a price. Our 
conversions, many of them, and our consecrations and 
sanctifications, are not purely Christian. There are no 
reservations with the true Christian! We once heard 
a prominent evangelist who received nearly $200,000 
(two hundred thousand dollars) in four meetings tell 




MODERN THESES 


239 


ten thousand men that he gave one tenth of his income 
to the Lord; and so far were they from knowing the 
New Testament standard of stewardship of all that 
they lustily cheered the statement. A nearer approxima¬ 
tion of New Testament consecration of means would 
have been to have given the Lord $180,000 (one hun¬ 
dred and eighty thousand) and reserve twenty thousand 
for self! Every Mormon is a tither. Twelve sturdy 
Mormon young men came into one of our meetings; 
they were on their way across the continent on a mis¬ 
sionary tour which they were financing out of their 
own tithes. Shall the standard of sensualized, demon¬ 
ized Mormonism be the same as the standard of the 
disciple of the pure Jesus? Nay. If they do so much 
for a false system what should not our benevolence be 
for the true? Raising money can never be the test of 
our Christianity. The Mormons, Christian Scientists, 
Catholics, Red Cross, and Governments, during the war 
far outdid us at that, raising billions for destructive war 
work to our millions for constructive Christian work. 

Neither can the activities consequent on the money 
raised be the test of Christianity: finer temples than our 
Protestant temples adorn the land; greater institutions 
of learning than we boast have been financed by the 
state and exist as centers of destructive criticism of the 
Word of God. 

Enthusiastic zeal in the propagation of our systems 
is not the test of the Christianity of Christ. The sub¬ 
jects of the Mikado will with fanatical zeal, in frenzy 
throw themselves into the heart of the battle coveting 
to die in the service of their Emperor, the Son of 
Heaven. The wild dervishes of the plain and the demon- 




240 


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~ 



possessed Mohammedans of the desert will dance for 
hours in devotion to Mohammed and the one Allah; 
they have extended their religion by the fury of the 
sword, compelling the allegiance of millions. This spirit 
has no relation to the mild Spirit of Jesus. 

Healing the sick is not the test of one’s rightness 
with God! Christian Science has numerous instances 
of preternatural healing—healing by Satanic power, ful¬ 
filling the prophecy of Christ about the latter day won¬ 
ders and signs in His Name, but leaving the subject 
bitter toward the blood atonement and the plenary in¬ 
spiration of the Scriptures: denying the Lord that 
bought them, repudiating the apparent facts of sin, 
sickness, death and the future torment of the wicked. 
Bodily healing is a fact with us. It concerns us to know 
the source. We have the profession of bodily healing 
with spirits that are as bitter as gall; wives loudly 
claiming healing of the body while their souls are filled 
with rebellion; despising their husbands whom God 
commands them to love and reverence; led off by the 
snare of the devil to teach that the conjugal relation, 
which God proclaims honorable in all and the bed unde¬ 
filed, is adultery: and leaving the husband from whom 
God says she should not depart. We also find a pro¬ 
fession of healing coexistent with a spirit which despises 
those who do not see the doctrine as they do and an 
unwillingness to fellowship them unless they do; where¬ 
as Christ did not tell the disciples to preach any theory 
of healing but to heal: respect of persons, uncharitable¬ 
ness and covetousness which excludes from the kingdom 
of God also are evident with a persistent profession of 




MODERN THESES 


241 


healing, whereas when God heals the body He also heals 
the soul of selfishness. 

The Master teaches those who glory in supernatural 
power that they might cast out demons and yet spend 
eternity with them; as for works of charity, they might 
do many wonderful works and yet hear the solemn, 
“Depart,” in the final day because He never knew them; 
and as for social activities, the world will be full of 
them when Christ comes as a thief. 

A STARTLING STATEMENT 

A text by which to test our Christianity is found 
in the 8th Chapter of Romans, the latter part of the 9th 
verse: “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, 
he is none of His.” A truly startling statement, my 
reader for you and me to ponder. We preachers are 
used to quoting texts at the congregation. Let me 
search and solemnize my own heart by reversing this 
order: “Now, if I have not the Spirit of Christ I am none 
of His.” I read of one preacher, during an impeding 
electrical storm, asking the congregation where they 
would be if the livid lightning should leap from the 
angry heavens and strike them? Just then the tables 
were turned and it struck the preacher, who so gener¬ 
ously blamed the congregation, and nearly killed him, 
and did kill a preacher of his type by his side. If the 
Lord would just strike the preachers with another kind 
of lightning the congregations would come along all 
right. For it is still like priest like people. So many of 
our preachers seem timid and fearful; they seem to have 
a fear of offending; a fear of the consequences of duty; 




242 


MODERN THESES 


a fear of preaching right out their convictioi/s in the 
energy of the Spirit. There is a fearful Recounting 
day for preachers. Sometime since we preached for a 
brother and before the service gave him certain points 
in the message. He was quick to suggest that we had 
better be cautious. But When the word was preached 
and the people eagerly crowded forward to shake hands 
and heartily thank us for the stirring truth, the pastor 
saw his mistake: the people often want what they do 
not get from many of God’s servants. Satan is lying 
to the pastors about what the people want. 

We can no more than point out a few of the char¬ 
acteristics of the Spirit of Christ which is the test of 
Christianity. John you will remember, wrote that we 
were to abide in the doctrine of Christ—a much needed 
injunction in some places—and Paul said we were to 
have the Spirit of Christ. We have been losing both. 

Universal: His was the universal Spirit. I do not 
mean Universalism, but universal in the sense that His 
provision was world-wide and He would enter into lov¬ 
ing fellowship with all. He is not narrow nor partisan 
nor restricted, as the sectarianism in His sympathies. 
He can not be limited in His love to one sect. The 
party spirit would limit the Holy Spirit; but He has 
nothing for one He would not gladly share with all. 
We are limited in our conceptions of the Spirit of Christ; 
He was not colloquial or provincial in His vision of 
service; though reared in a despised province in a small 
town and His people being the narrowest of the narrow 
and the most exclusive of the exclusive, He did what 
few ever do, rose above the interests of family, commun¬ 
ity, province, nation, and religious training, broke over 






MODERN THESES 


243 


the narrow exclusive Jewish traditions, saw other men 
of other nations as dear to God as the chosen nation, 
and spoke in world terms of the love of God: “God so 
loved the world”, not the Jewish world. Oh, thank God 
that, 

“The measure of God’s love 
Is broader than the measure of man’s mind,” 
and when men would corner, own, restrict and limit God 
in their conceptions of His love, he breaks their bands 
easier than Sampson broke the withes. 

Our religious speech has a foreign accent, a brogue, 
a twang, that gives us away; that shows we have not 
yet drunk deeply into His Spirit. As P. W. Wilson 
wrote of Peter, his Galileean accent nearly cost him his 
life; he had never been able to rise above it, as some 
foreigners who come to our shores always talk with an 
accent which shows that they have not perfectly mas¬ 
tered our language “Peter thou are one of His disciples, 
thy speech betrayeth thee; thou art from Galilee, thou 
talkest with the Galileean accent.” That is the trouble 
with much of our Christianity; we talk with an accent; 
our religious talk is not purely what Paul terms con¬ 
versation in heaven; it does not minister grace to the 
hearers, it is rather in the adroit speech, the subtle art 
of the proselyter, ever alert to make converts to his sect 
—we do not so purely speak that men are added to the 
Lord: our converts are the converts of men not of Christ, 
often, and zealots for a sect rather than in fellowship 
with a Person! A man’s speech will soon give him 
away culturally and we do not talk long with our reli¬ 
gious accent until we give our little knowledge of the 
pure spirit of Christ away. We are sectional; we sing, 





244 


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“We are not divided, all one body, we”, and about the 
only place that is true is in the hymn-book. You can 
tell an Irishman by his brogue as well as by his brogans: 
so you can tell our adulterated Christianity by our reli¬ 
gious brogue. We need to drop all accents but the 
Christlike accent. As men took knowledge of the early 
Christians that they had been with Christ and learned 
of Him they need take knowledge of us that we have 
learned how to talk as a Christian talks, our unaccented 
speech becoming the gospel of Christ. Away with 
Methodist and Presbyterian and Baptist accent! and 
the Holiness and Alliance and Pentecostal accent! let 
only the Christ accent be heard. We exemplify the 
brigade we have drilled with and the schools we have 
been trained in by crying for the peculiar accents, 
and then we contend that others shall be as enthusiastic 
for these accents and peculiar expressions as we are, but 
many people are losing all enthusiasm for all accents 
except the Christ accent! Away with all other accents! 
We need surrender our conception of the Christianity 
of Christ for His conception of a Christian as one who 
follows only Christ. Let us hear no more of a man being 
a Moody man or a Sunday man or an Alliance man or 
a Holiness man and let us be content to be Jesus men! 
And let us cease asking men how they stand on doctrinal 
shibboleths and forms of expression and let us be con¬ 
cerned how they stand on the Rock Christ Jesus! Oh, 
the contrast between the Christianity of Christ and ours. 
We are so sensitive about the idols of our making that 
the slightest frank reference to them and we are burning 
with indignation: An evangelist once remarked that God 
was not a- (mentioning a prominent denomina- 





MODERN THESES 


245 


tion) but He was a Christian. Up jumped a devotee of 
the sect mentioned and out of the church they ran and 
started an opposition meeting across the street forth¬ 
with. By our accents we show the section of the country 
we hail from, North, South, East or West, with the 
Christian, as the Hindu said, “He is just a Jesus man”. 
Have we this universal spirit of Christ? Do we think 
of others outside our church and movement? Do we 
receive to our fellowship all whom He receives? As 
Paul wrote, “Whom Christ receives, receive ye.” Do 
we rejoice at the good people of God in other folds than 
our own? 

Aggressiveness: His was the aggressive spirit. He 
was an itinerant. He said at an early period of His 
life, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business for therefore am I sent.” He walked all over 
Palestine to preach the Gospel. He said, “I must go to 
other towns.” “I must work the works of Him that 
sent Me while it is day.” “I have a baptism to be bap¬ 
tized with and how am I straitened till it be accom¬ 
plished.” The proof of His anointing with the Holy 
Ghost was that He went about doing good. It is a very 
interesting study to list all the individuals He helped. 
When He would retire to the wilderness for a brief 
respite it was to recuperate so that He might soon return 
to the Father’s work. If we have His spirit we too will 
be filled with a Divine enthusiasm to go about declaring 
the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; to do all in 
our power to help others go: we will do all in our power 
to do good to the bodies and souls of men, having the 
helpful accommodating spirit of the Master. 

His aggressiveness was not spent in building sys- 




246 


MODERN THESES 


terns, but men, in holy character. He was never diverted 
from His life mission as outlined by the Father to Him, 
which, in His own words was to: 

“Finish the Father’s work (“I have finished 
the work which thou gavest me to do”). 

To give men the Father’s words (“The 
word which thou hast given to me I have given 
to them”). 

To manifest the Father’s name (“I have 
manifested thy Name to the men which thou 
hast given me”). 

To glorify the Father: “I have glorified 
thee.” 

What pressure is brought to bear on the minister 
today to seek to engage him in things foreign to the 
program of Christ. 

Another element of the Spirit of Christ we wish 
briefly to consider, was His Spirit of consideration and 
thoughtfulness of others: 

He never injured anybody nor took advantage of 
anybody; He was ever careful to avoid doing so. How 
thoughtless we have been! The law of His life was 
so thoroughly to think of and serve others that it became 
a habit with him so that until the last He demonstrated 
this rule “Bear ye one-another’s burdens and so fulfil 
the law of Christ.” 

Some see the significance in the silence of the Gos¬ 
pels about Joseph after the record of the taxation when 
Jesus was twelve years old; the inference is that Joseph 
died shortly after this event and that Jesus being the 
oldest child of the seven recorded children of Joseph and 
Mary must assume the responsibility for their support. 




MODERN THESES 


247 


If this is so it is a touching reference to the thoughtful¬ 
ness of Jesus toward others. And it is thought by 
others that the reference to the widow and the unjust 
judge is an incident from the experience of His own 
widowed mother. There is abundant proof that from 
an early age He was abundant in good works for others: 
His subjection to His parents implies much helpful serv¬ 
ice to them in the rearing of a large family. Thought¬ 
fulness of others and doing good to them was the habit 
of His life and will be of ours if we have His spirit. The 
basic axiom in Geometry is that things which are equal 
to the same thing are equal to each other. That is so 
of the Spirit of Christ. In His heart and in the reader’s 
and in the writer’s heart the Spirit is the same and as 
that Spirit prompted Christ to helpful service to others 
as the rule of life He will likewise prompt us. See Him 
not only through part of life but in the last hours of 
life exemplify this law. On the way to the cross when 
groaning under the heavy weight of the cross and when 
exhausted and faint from the stirring scenes He had but 
recently passed through; and worn from a life more 
occupied than any with arduous activities, as the 
mothers of Jerusalem line the via dolorosa and weep for 
the suffering Saviour and the awful agony before Him 
on Calvary, He is so forgetful of self and so thoughtful 
of others that He tells them not to weep for Him but to 
weep for themselves and their children for the miseries 
which are coming on them. (When He is finally nailed 
to the tree the life habit of thoughtfulness of others is 
so strong on Him that He exercises it to the last. Turn¬ 
ing around, amid excruciating suffering, he calls to John 
His thought of His mother. “Behold thy mother!” He 




248 


MODERN THESES 


would rather she be with the apostle of love. He so far 
forgets His own sufferings that He remembers the cry 
of the penitent thief and assures him that that day he 
would be with Him in Paradise. Then finally remem¬ 
bering the poor demonized murderers He prays, ‘'Father 
forgive them, they know not what they do.” Oh, for the 
thoughtfulness of Christ for others! There is a touch¬ 
ing incident told of Father Taylor of the Seamen’s 
Bethel, Boston, when He was in his eighty-fifth year: 
someone was leading him past a full length mirror and, 
Father Taylor’s eyesight being dim, he saw but faintly 
the image of an old man in the mirror, and thinking he 
was some stranger he cried out as was the habit of his 
soul-saving life: “Old man, you had better give your 
heart to Jesus.” We may attain to that,—doing good to 
others—a spontaneous habit! 





MODERN THESES 


249 


“He, Luther, had gradually taught himself and his 
countrymen, who were following his career breathlessly 
that the man who trusted in God did not need to fear the 
censures of the pope or the clergy. He emancipated not 
merely the learned and cultivated classes, but the common 
people, from the fear of the Church; and this was the one 
thing needful for a true Reformation. So long as the people 
of Europe believed that the priesthood had some mysterious 
powers , no matter how vague or indefinite, over the spiritual 
and eternal welfare of men and women, freedom of con¬ 
science and a renovation of the public and private moral 
life was impossible; the greatest achievement of Luther was 
that by teaching and, above all, by example, he showed the 
common man that he was in God’s hands, AND NOT 
DEPENDENT ON THE BLESSING OR BAN OF A 
CLERICAL CASTE. From the moment that the common 
people, simple men and women, knew and felt this, they 
were FREED from the mysterious dread of Church and 
priesthood; they could look the clergy fairly in the face, 
and could care little for their threats. It was because Luther 
had freed himself from this dread because the people, zvho 
knew him to be a deeply pious man, saw that he was free 
from it, and therefore they need be in no concern about it, 
that he became the great reformer and popular leader in 
an age which was compelled to revise its thoughts about 
spiritual things.” — Lindsey , Reformation in Germany, page 
192-193. 

“He taught freedom from the fear of priestcraft; re¬ 
demption was not a secret science practiced by the priests 
within an institution called the church; that all believers 
had the privilege of direct access to the very presence of 





250 


MODERN THESES 


God and that the very thought of a priesthood who 
ALONE could mediate between God and man was both 
superfluous and irreconcilable with the truests instincts of 
the Christian religion!” 

When modern leaders seek to intimidate us with their 
new assumptions of infallibility and the duty of every one 
following them and when they seek with threats and bans 
and reflections on our going on with God, because we do 
not go on with them, let us remember we have nothing to 
fear. Their bulls and bans and threats and prayers for our 
judgment and affliction, and threats of the wrath of God, 
are no more to us than the fear with which the Pope sought 
to intimidate the dupes of Reformation days. There is NO 
FEAR in LOVE. Remember this ever. We are free from 
all fear of all men, all priests and preachers and systems 
and churches and evangelists, etc. 




MODERN THESES 


251 


Complete Freedom Found Only in Christ 

CHAPTER XX 

COMPLETE FREEDOM IN CHRIST 

“The freedom which is ours in Christ Jesus.” 

Weymouth’s translation, Gal. 2:5. 

Negatively: Does not consist of a mere change of 
the sphere of our bondage, or in a change of its name. 
Of all inferior apples, worthless alike for cooking and 
tasteless for eating, Ben Davis take the lead. The sales¬ 
man knew this and tried to sell them to us under a new 
name—“Gaino”, but the new name did not transform 
them, they were the same old tasteless, pithy, Ben Davis 
apples! Bolshevism, in Russia, we are told, is Czarism 
disguised in overalls; all know that we have the same 
old pre-war world under the new slogan: “Made Safe 
For Democracy” (the rule of the people); and the same 
problems in church though claiming to have entered a 
new, golden era. A manufacturer whom we knew had 
three labels for one shovel—Crusco, Busco and Little 
Giant all decorating the same inferior grade of shovel. 
Artistically decorated labels may adorn a can of spoiled 
corn; and Golden Rule stores may be so in name only; 
and a great bill-board advertising tires which are sup¬ 
posed to give the longest mileage and the greatest service 
may be a camouflage for a very inferior tire. The soul, 
in religious bondage, seeking its freedom, may jump 
from the frying pan into the fire, looking for the perfect 
church organization. In the days of Feudalism men 




252 


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were slaves to the land: in the revival or beginning of 
industrialism they hoped for relief only to find that their 
bondage had been shifted from the land to the factory. 
The emancipation of the slaves has been pictured in 
glowing colors and while not unappreciative of what 
has been done for them much remains to be done—they 
are still, in numerous instances, slaves to the warehouse 
and wharf; to the hovel and hut and to starvation wages; 
and there are communities where they are subjected to 
cursing, hatred, and contingent lynching. 

An amusing observation shows the attitude of 
many: when a clerk in a railroad office; there came to 
our desk a report of a wreck in the South in which an 
engineer stated that his locomotive had run over a 
wagon filled with negroes, drawn by two mules, and 
killed two of them, making no discrimination between 
negroes and mules. 

Subscribing only to the ideas held by one religious 
movement and rejecting the truth which inheres in 
others is not the freedom of which Paul writes. Truth, 
wherever found, is the legitimate heritage of the true 
child of God. He welcomes it eagerly when heard from 
unexpected quarters. I once heard a woman who had 
been trained in the straightest of modern Phariseism 
and despised others, tell of her amazement in hearing a 
minister of the Presbyterian Church preach a most con- 
victive sermon (to her heart) on the subject of resti¬ 
tution. I am more and more convinced that each move¬ 
ment has some phase of truth that the other needs; the 
error is in over-emphasis of truth and a failure of right 
perspective of whole truth. Instead of the different 
phases of truth emphasized by different sects being the 




MODERN THESES 


253 


basis for separation, each should welcome what the 
other knows and can teach of truth—truth, being the 
instrument of freedom and unity, should unify rather 
than separate. I recall a zealous devotee of a radical 
holiness church who said to me that from the tenor of 
their periodicals she had imbibed the idea that outside 
her church, few if any, were right with God. She had 
a struggle to feel that I could be right and belong to 
another church, so universally condemned by her church. 
But under the searching truth of God’s Word she made 
the startling discovery that she herself was all wrong— 
that she did not have the right feeling towards a single 
member of her own infallible church, and publicly con¬ 
fessed and asked their forgiveness. 

Neither are ironclad, hide-bound, hard-shell views 
consistent with Gospel Liberty! We are well aware that 
there are certain unalterable, unchanging, fundamental 
Gospel truths, but there may be yet, under the inspira¬ 
tion of God, emphasis of certain truth, truth which has 
been allowed of God to lie dormant through the cen¬ 
turies, with which God may yet mightily shake the 
world. 

The writer was once conducting family worship, 
reading from Mark’s Gospel, the account of the 
Demoniac of Gadara and called attention to the fact that 
there were nearly one hundred references to demonology 
within the brief compass of the sixteen chapters of Mark’s 
Gospel. One present said, “It is a new doctrine; my 
husband was a smart man and a preacher and he never 
preached this doctrine, therefore it cannot be true. He 
forgot more about the Bible than you will ever know.” 
That spirit is just how tradition, with its rejection of 




254 


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the Word of God came into power. Men were exalted 
above what Christ had written. But the words of Jesus 
are sufficient—they outweigh the words of all. If his 
words, as they so often do run counter to human theo¬ 
ries, “We should bend our theories and make them fit 
our facts.” 

Limiting our love and labor to one movement is 
not the disentanglement Paul is considering. It is free¬ 
dom to exalt Christ and all the worthy things in all 
movements are quickened. The trouble, one has sug¬ 
gested of much of our activity is that it is not Christian, 
but sectarian—it does not make men like Christ but like 
our sectarian conception of Christ. If a man clearly sees 
the tenets so peculiar and so dear to us, and if he intel¬ 
lectually assents to them, and shows happiness and zeal 
in their propogation, we give him the right hand of fel¬ 
lowship. But the Master adopts a more searching test: 
not by adjustment to doctrine or human party but: “By 
their fruits ye shall know them.” 

Mere fleshly enthusiasm, which the Master said 
profited nothing, a hilarious time in meeting, is far from 
equivalent to the deep heart and life freedom in Christ. 
We may teeter up and down and go through all manner 
of gyrations in abandonment to our emotions while we 
refuse to gather sticks, like Paul on the Island, doing our 
part to sustain the fire by which we warmed. We recall 
once seeing an intelligent deaconess give way to a frenzy 
of emotionalism, who was smitten with conviction of 
its selfishness while no one was being born into the 
kingdom—demonstration is easy compared with the 
pain of travail for souls. It is not said that when Zion 
demonstrates she shall bring forth her children, but 




MODERN THESES 


255 


when Zion is in the agony of soul travail! We are not 
writing of pure demonstration of the Spirit but of the 
selfish fleshly kind. We shall never forget a reproof 
given by Professor Shaw when preaching in a large 
camp-meeting where a sister cried out, interrupting him, 
“We need more fire here/’ “True, sister,” was the mild 
rejoinder, “but it depends on what you mean by fire. 
There are various kinds: wild-fire; fox fire; phosphores¬ 
cent fire, which emits a sickly glow without warmth; fan¬ 
atical fire; spit-fire; hell fire, and holy fire. If you mean 
we need holy fire, you are right.” He then described 
pointedly the effects of holy fire as fire which burned up 
bank-notes for God and humanity; which put farms and 
businesses and ambitions and talents on the altar for 
God, burning from the heart all narrowness and selfish¬ 
ness ; a fire which gave the soul the liberty to hear all 
the word of God and walk in all its light rather than 
to run off on a tangent about one phase of it. We are 
in desperate need of more holy fire. The sister was 
speechless! Her conception of fire was limited to noise 
and demonstration; which runs out in selfish shouting 
while the world is dying. 

How our conception of the extent of the liberty in 
Christ needs enlarging! We have frequently observed 
men of wealth, hang around churches and tabernacle 
meetings, passing the song books with a sanctimonious¬ 
ness which indicated that they thought they were doing 
the work of the Lord. And when we shot a bow at s 
venture, remarking that a man could not expect to get 
rewards in heaven on passing song^books, while he con¬ 
tinued in his miresliness, old Scrooge was highly indig¬ 
nant at the perforation of all his armor wherein he 




256 


MODERN THESES 


trusted, went up a tree known as miff, and staid until 
the meeting was over. We need a revelation of how 
deep our selfishness is when cloaked under the guise oi’ 
piety. Like men who wrapped the American flag about 
them, loudly professing loyalty, during the war, to cover 
their treachery, men may quote the Bible while utterly 
ignorant of its demands. A wealthy farmer had in con¬ 
spicuous letters on his barn: ‘‘The Lord is my shepherd, 
I shall not want.” That was the trouble he literally 
wanted the Lord to be his shepherd but cared little what 
became of the other fellow. Calling attention one night 
to the motto and suggesting that there was very little 
danger of a man with a large farm with war prices pre¬ 
vailing, wanting; and that full deliverance in Christ 
would legitimately paraphrase the text to read: “The 
Lord is my shepherd; the other fellow shall not want;” 
The shock intended was produced; the tight-wad was 
literally awakened so that he was not able to sleep for 
two weeks normally. But he hardened his heart, and 
accused the preacher of adding to the Word of God. 

Some are defeated by giving an undue prominence 
to certain places or environments, as essential to victory; 
others to special atmospheres in which they expect to 
find God; He accommodates Himself to this weakness, 
but it shows that He Himself is secondary, limited in our 
thought to the place or atmosphere. I once went to a 
place where the Lord had marvelously manifested Him¬ 
self to me in hopes that He would repeat the manifes¬ 
tation. But He was not consciously there; having limit¬ 
less resources He need not repeat Himself. We need 
David’s vision of the transcendent God: “As the hart 
pants after the water brooks so pants my soul after thee, 




MODERN THESES 


257 


O, God!” Not after the water brooks the gift of God, 
but after the Giver Himself. I have somewhere read 
that, “Atmospheres are helpful and dangerous. They 
intoxicate us as they did Peter so that we would ever 
abide in them—Dangerous when we trust them in any 
sense.” 

“I dare not trust the sweetest frame; 

But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.” 

Only when Christ is our life will we be free from 
the “wiggle and wobble” prevalent everywhere. With¬ 
out Him, there will be vacillation and lack of stability 
The freedom is not found in a special atmosphere but 
in Christ! 

Positively: In Paul’s description of the extent of 
our liberty in Christ, in Galatians, we find: 

All absence of sinful respect of persons, —Paul, him¬ 
self is an example. He found, when visiting the Jerusa¬ 
lem church that Peter, James and John seemed to be 
pillars; Paul, having his message direct from Jesus, in 
comparing notes with th ecclesiastical triumvirate finds 
they have nothing in their teaching that the Lord had 
not revealed to Him, though as one born out of due 
time; they who seemed to be of reputation in the church 
added nothing to him; yea, he discovered that God had 
revealed clearly to Him some very vital things which 
they did not seem to see at all and running the risk of 
repudiation by the foremost leaders (“whatsoever they 
were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth no 
man’s person”) ; (thus, parenthetically, wrote free Paul) 
he resisted Peter, (called the first pope) to his face 
because he was to be blamed. With Paul, Jesus towered 
far above the three leading church pillars, Peter, Jame3 




258 


MODERN THESES 


and John, as the pyramids above the Nile plains or 
mountains above the Nile hills; and He surely far over¬ 
towers all the great church pillars since. Is there a 
more searching test of a man’s victory in Christ than 
exemption from the respect of persons? “If ye have 
respect of persons ye commit sin. There is no respect 
of persons with God.” We are not now writing of rev¬ 
erent respect and esteem for those whom God has used 
as the instruments of our salvation, or who are over us 
in the Lord and watch over our souls, admonishing us 
for we are told to regard such highly in the Lord; but 
that sinful respect of persons shown in partiality. The 
world is full of this, and the church has entirely too 
much of it. The case James cites is familiar: The man 
with the gay clothing and the gold ring given the exalted 
seat, while the poor man in mean attire is despised. Or, 
to modernize it, the sinful fawning on the man or woman 
with the custom tailoring and the scorn for the man with 
the hand-me-down or dressed in the workingman’s suit. 
Waiters, red-caps, bell boys, Pullman porters, dining-car 
attendants are all guilty of this sin and sometimes 
preachers and evangelists in refusing calls to the poor 
fields. In a leading hotel in C., a high officer of the 
navy was entering the elevator with his little son who 
was dressed in miniature Admiral’s uniform; on observ* 
ing the neatly attired lady operator of the car, the polite 
little fellow doffed his jaunty head-gear. His father 
said, “Never mind, son, there are no ladies in the car. 
you need not remove your hat.” With burning indigna¬ 
tion the attendant recited the incident to the author, 
telling how men will remove their hats when ascending 






MODERN THESES 


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the elevators in company with fallen women, but keep 
them on when the only woman in the car is the operator. 

This spirit is sometimes seen in institutions where 
the higher life is taught, on revival occasions, when 
there is a decided deference shown the seeker if he be 
the son of the president or trustee or wealthy patron or 
leading evangelist, or a student from the home of afflu¬ 
ence, while neglecting the poor boy or girl who sweeps 
halls or washes dishes to get through. It is seen too, 
in barring servants from prayer; or in the immediate 
reply to a letter from the rich and letting remain un¬ 
opened, the one from the poor; or in being more inter¬ 
ested when a member of our church moves to town than 
the one from some other church. 

Paul also enumerates freedom from the legalism of 
James who with Peter tried to saddle the law of Moses 
on those who were happily saved by grace through faith, 
saying “except ye keep the law of Moses and be circum¬ 
cised ye can not be saved.” It was for this that Paul 
rebuked Peter (and James) withstanding him to the face 
because he was to be blamed, giving place to their law 
religion, by subjection, no not for an hour; that the 
truth of the Gospel might continue. “When I saw that 
they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the 
gospel, I said unto Peter, before them all, if thou being 
a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as 
do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as 
do the Jews? Knowing that a man is not justified by 
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, 
even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be 
justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of 




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the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be 
justified.” Galatians 2:14-16. 

These legalists were the certain false brethren (not 
false because of their inadvertence to the law; not made 
offenders for a word; but in their legalism, false) ; of the 
circumcism party who came in privily to spy out the 
freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might 
bring us again into the bondage of the law. They sub¬ 
stituted works for faith; having begun in the Spirit they 
sought perfection by the works of the flesh instead of 
the hearing of faith. 

This glorious release was purchased for us by Christ. 
What another pays for and gives to me is mine. I add 
nothing to his purchase price. I use the gift. If I work 
for a gift I thwart the giver’s benevolence. It then 
becomes a reward for service and is no longer a gift. I 
once gave our laundress a present of two dollars. Mop¬ 
ping the tears with her red bandanna she said with 
broken voice: “Tell the Missus I’ll come around and 
work this out.” “No no, auntie, the Lord laid it on my 
heart to give it to you. It is free. You do nothing for it 
but take it.” The only condition for the receiving of 
gifts is a willing attitude of receptivity. Why struggle 
for what is ours in Christ who has purchased glorious 
freedom for us, let us believe Him and accept it. Let us 
be like Andy Dolbow, who on being taken into a diner 
for the first time; when the kind friend handed him the 
bill of fare and asked Andy what he would have, he 
replied, “I will take the whole of it.” It is now within 
our grasp for the taking. It is present. The freedom 
which is ours. No longer need we struggle for that 
which is lawfully ours. I do not struggle to get a type- 




MODERN THESES 


261 


writer with which I am writing these words. I have 
one; it is mine; I use it. 

It is freedom to serve, Paul finally wrote: “By love 
serve one another.” This will be one of the surest means 
of heeding the injunction to guard, or stand fast, in, the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. It includes 
an accommodating spirit and the helpful hand; it bears 
one another’s burdens and so fulfils the law or rule of 
Christ. How often there is the profession disassociated 
from the idea of brotherly kindness seen in helping 
every one his brother! That profession and worship of 
God in the Name of His Son which is not followed by 
service to men is a grief to God. I recall a broken¬ 
hearted wioman, whose husband was over seas, who 
tried, in her virtual widowhood, through a whole sum¬ 
mer, to get professors of the highest life to give her 
practical assistance. She was unable to interest a single 
soul in doing a single practical thing for her for love or 
money. When she finally found two young men willing 
to turn from their own interests to assist her she wept 
convulsively with joy and surprise. 

Liberty of soul in Christ involves peace of con¬ 
science; liberty of spirit; sweet abandonment of all to 
God; gracious generosity, proportionate to capacity, and 
the joy of seeing light always increasing in our hearts; 
with freedom from the bondage to and the desires of the 
world: as long as the world is anything to us our free¬ 
dom is but a word and we are as easily captured as a 
bird whose leg is fastened by a thread; we only seem 
to be free; the string is not visible but we can only fly 
its length and we are prisoners. 

Much of our church activity is mechanical, not free 




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with the spontaniety of the Spirit. Our actions are like 
those of a galvanized corpse. When I was a boy I stood 
by a faker and pulled for him an invisible string which 
made two imitation prize fighters fight. They could not 
go by their own strength. Their motions were artificial; 
they only went when they were pulled to it. So is the 
life of many modern churches: they only go when pulled 
to a seemingness of life by the appeal to the old well 
worn motives of loyalty to the church. Oh, that God 
would give the churches the vision to see that the only 
necessary incentive to spontaneous, continuous service 
is the Vision of His Son like He gave to Paul on the 
Damascus Road from which he never swerved until he 
lay his head on the headman’s block. 





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Let us not overlook the fact that our bondage may be 
as great, in, and to, new religious movements, and their 
shibboleths, as ever was the bondage of men in the Roman 
Church of the dark ages; and that only the power of Christ 
can keep us true to Him and our fellows in the new place, 
and to the newly labeled but often unchanged crowd, trans¬ 
ference and transformation not being identical. Compla¬ 
cency with the new order is as disastrous to real freedom 
as deception in the old system. An enthusiastic zealot, for 
the changing order, of Zwingle's time, and for the new 
leaders, said to Zwingle: “I now, and henceforth, forsake 
the old teachers for the new.” Zwingle nobly answered, 
“Nay, man, follow only God's Word as it alone does not 
err.” A Greater than Zwingle said: “Ye do greatly err not 
knowing the Scriptures” 

God speed the day when enchained and stifled Christen¬ 
dom shall be fully emancipated! Snap again our bands and 
bondage, though masquerading under newer, subtler, more 
insidious, and unsuspected guises! 

Break them in pieces, thou Hammer Word of God! 
Cut them asunder thou sharp Sword of the Spirit, which 
is the Word of God! Thou Word of God likened unto 
Fire, burn them forever off Thy people! Thresh them to 
shreds thou sharp Threshing Instrument, having teeth! 
Thou precious blood of Christ, shed to make us free, purge 
from us their death touch, until we shall stand forth in all 
the glorious freedom Thou hast purchased for us! Make 




264 


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us free from all authority except Christ’s; and yet save us 
from the opposite extreme of unsympathy for struggling 
souls yet under bondage to men and their systems! Give 
us the true independence which comes alone from submis¬ 
sion to the Personal God and faith in His Son! 

Teach us to look alone to the One Great Emancipator, 
Jesus . Amen. 




MODERN THESES 


265 


CHAPTER XXI 

COMPLETE FREEDOM IN CHRIST 

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, 

ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36. 

This is the Master’s great emancipation proclama¬ 
tion of soul freedom. A brief glance at the contextual 
elements of this freedom, He alone can give, involves: 

A merciful construction of the law of Moses as 
applied to the erring adulteress: “Neither do I condemn 
thee. Go in peace and sin no more.” A freedom which 
quits throwing stones and extends mercy as our Father 
in heaven is merciful. 

Freedom from a worldly spirit: “Ye are not of this 
world.” A worldly spirit cloaked under the guise of 
great religious activity. The Lord is grieved when men 
carry the worldly spirit into the house of God. 

Freedom to demonstrate our love for God by loving 
His Son and the lovers of His Son, “Every one that 
loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten 
of Him”. “If God were your Father,” Jesus said to the 
Jews, “ye would love Me for I came forth from Him.” 
If Christ is our Saviour we love all those little ones who 
believe on Him and are saved by Him—Freedom in 
Christ is freedom to love, fellowship, receive, compan¬ 
ion and identify ourselves with the unpopular man and 
cause, and to go to the unpopular place. 

Liberty to please God: “I do always those things 
that please Him.” “We make it our ambition”, wrote 
Paul, “to be well pleasing to Him.” With this witness, 




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it matters little who is displeased with our course—“For 
if I please men I am no longer the servant of Christ.” 
What effort to please men we see on every hand though 
at the fearful penalty of repudiation by God! 

Exemption from a murderous, or persecuting spirit. 
Mark well, the false religionist must persecute the true. 
His very falseness demands it. “Ye seek to kill Me 
because My Word hath no place in you.” 

It involves exemption from any alignment whatever 
with the great antagonist to truth. There is no middle 
ground—the soul is either for or against Christ. If not 
fully with Him there is only one other alternative, one 
other choice of Masters, Satan! “He was a murderer 
from the beginning and (one great Satanic character¬ 
istic) abode not in the truth.” Hence all antagonism to 
the truth is alignment with Satan, the Father of all truth 
resisters. “Because I tell you the truth ye (sympa¬ 
thizers with Satan, the truth-hater) believe Me not.” 

Freedom from all Satanically engendered lust: “Ye 
are of your father the devil and his lusts ye will do.” 
The Marys and Marthas are perfectly safe with Christ 
and those who have purified themselves even as He is 
pure. 

Freedom from all sin, outward and inward: “Which 
of you convinces Me of sin.” It was in the foregoing 
instances Jesus said, “Ye shall be made free.” 

Humility in freedom implies deliverance from over- 
confidence in the infallibility of our opinions; 

Charity in freedom involves power to look on the mis¬ 
takes of others in love and kindness, without contempt; 
It enables us to look on the intellectual, hereditary and 
other infirmities of our fellows with the same degree of 




MODERN THESES 


267 


compassion with which we look on their physical or 
bodily deformites. 

We should notice without contempt (considering 
ourselves, lest we be tempted) the errors of others, at the 
same time, accept with alacrity whatever they may know 
and can teach us. 

Freedom from despising the poor, negatively, includ¬ 
ing positively, equity and justice and fairness in all our 
dealings with them. Some one suggests, “When Christ 
comes to dwell in the heart, vassal, serf, slave, renter, 
proletariat, plebian, peasant, laborer, working man, 
menial toiler and all other words of derision and con¬ 
tempt, are eliminated from our vocabularies.” 

Said a modern educator, “We do not want that type 
of factory to come to our town because it will not bring 
the right type of people to our community.” But God is 
no respector of persons and the machinists’ and the 
laborers’ redemption, cost Him as dearly as the educa¬ 
tor’s, and is equally precious in His sight. 

Emancipation in Christ includes freedom to see the 
progressiveness of the revelation of truth to us, and 
from the conceit that our apprehensions of truth 
are final. Paul did not think he knew anything. He 
even laid down the condition of becoming a fool to know 
anything at all. He confessed his ignorance. He said 
he was not sufficient of himself to think anything, much 
less to do anything; and that all of sufficiency was in 
a resource outside of himself. “Our sufficiency is of 
God.” He confessed that he did not even know how to 
pray as he ought but must depend on the Spirit to make 
intercession through him. 

While not depreciating any work of God yet there 




268 


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is freedom from magnifying our experiences, gifts and 
attainments. “Paul, his experiences, his attainments, 
what are they? He forgets them all—calls them things 
that are past and values them as dross and thinks Christ 
Jesus only worth while to press forward to—yea he 
counts all things loss, for the excellency of the knowl¬ 
edge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.” 

Indifference to the self-seeking of ecstatic delights, 
spiritual luxuriousness and the apathy of quietism. 
“Paul was strenuous not reposeful” and the Master said 
oft, “I must go,” “I must do,” “I must preach.” 

Deliverance from erroneous mechanical, stereo¬ 
typed or conventional interpretations of truth, as sub¬ 
stitutes for truth and its vital interpretation; and from 
the intellectual imperalism of the fathers; from the 
intolerable bondage of false religious thought of the 
ages; freedom to go beyond all to Christ; He makes us 
free from the spiritual arrogance and the subtle assump¬ 
tions of infallibility of interpretation of the Rabbis, 
ancient, modern, papal or protestant, holiness or pente- 
costal, and gives deliverance from the tyranny of tradi¬ 
tion old or new; and free us from the lordship of the 
fathers, many of whom, were astute lawyers, with a 
precision for exact binding definition; from great theolo¬ 
gians and councils from Nice to Trent down to the last 
World Conference, whenever they speak contrary to the 
Word of God. 

Freedom from the fear of all men; deliverance from 
looking to the enemies of the cross for tribute; freedom 
from compromise of truth and convictions; freedom 
from the soft pedal; unflinching fidelity to truth though 




MODERN THESES 


269 


all men rave, and as Luther said, “devils burst them¬ 
selves with rage.” 

Freedom in Christ, repose of the soul in Him alone, 
trust in God for sustenance in the path of duty, look¬ 
ing away from faith in systems. 

The soul standing forth in this glorious emanci¬ 
pation in Christ has no fear of what man can do unto 
him. He is fully delivered from the deification of all 
men. Those who are reputed great preachers, to him 
who has the Head, are but ministers by whom he be¬ 
lieved; God might have used some humbler instrument. 
He refuses to glory in men, movements or systems. He 
will not burn incense to man or his achievements, having 
a worthier Person to Whom He pours out his adoration, 
yet he reverently esteems all true servants of Christ 
highly in love for their work’s sake. The free man in 
Christ Jesus burns incense to none but Christ. He 
refuses indignantly to sing the modern siren song, fore¬ 
runner to the imminent coming of Anti-Christ. 

“Glory to man in the highest.” 

The free man denies that Herod is great or a god. He 
refuses to fall down and worship the image Nebuchad- 
nezzer sets up. Diana of the Ephesians is not great; to 
him, only Christ is great. The modern towers of Babel 
and the wonders of material civilization of the day inter¬ 
est him little, destined as they are to early dissolution. 
He burns not incense to gods of modern manufacture. 
He refuses to sacrifice to the gods though the penalty 
be ostracism, or anonymous communications of warning 
pass to and fro or the lying tongue of the gossip wag, 
even though his refusal results in martyrdom. 

The free man in Christ Jesus refuses to wave cen- 




270 


MODERN THESES 


sors of the incenses of fulsome praise to the mirage- 
golden era or new-age supposed to have come to the 
world by that wrath of man which works not the right¬ 
eousness of God. He will not praise its futile projects 
and schemes which ignore God and His revelation. 

It is freedom to hold fast our integrity and main¬ 
tain our manhood; to not hold men’s persons in admira¬ 
tion for the sake of gain; regulating our conversation 
without covetousness. “Nothing,” wrote Thomas 
Huges, “so tests our manhood as our attitude towards 
those who have power to assist us in projects which lie 
nearest our heart.” Instance Christ and Nicodemus the 
man of power, authority, social, religious and financial 
standing: his recommendation would go far to help the 
earnest young Jesus; if he is wise he will seek to please 
Nicodemus by speaking of his religious shibboleths, 
making much of traditional righteousness, the value of 
loyalty to the Synagogue and Temple and the merit of 
tithe payment of mint, rue, anise, cummin and all man¬ 
ner of herbs; He will compliment his alms giving and 
formal fasting and perfunctory street-corner praying, 
and long flowing Pharisaical robes, together with his 
zeal in proselytism. But not one word of fawning ser¬ 
vile praise; not one move to win his favor; not the least 
indication that He sought his patronage; not the use of 
a single shibboleth, dear to Nicodemus. “Nicodemus,” 
He said, “all your traditional righteousness, all you have 
thought acceptable to God is worthless. You must be 
bom again.” 

A zealous modern convert is called on the carpet 
and warned not to oflfend wealthy hearers as “they are 
giving to the support of our institution.” Certainly we 




MODERN THESES 


271 


should not study to give offense, but if the offense or 
umbrage is because of fidelity to truth, stand by the 
offense of the cross which has not ceased for all who 
live godly in Christ Jesus, though all men and devils 
rage. God's pure kingdom will never be forwarded by 
cowardice! 

We deny that any modern church has the right to 
demand tribute from the child of God, right or wrong— 
That we and all Christians in Christ Jesus are free from 
all men in the sense that Scripture means and that we 
are under no obligation, whatever, to pay a cent of God’s 
sacred money, the tithe being still holy (and offerings 
too) to the Lord after devoted to Him and subservient 
to His guidance. With the free man in Christ it is not 
a matter at all of giving, all being subject to the Father’s 
will but the only problem is where God would have it 
go. We declare that much modern church machinery 
and work is in no sense whatever the work of the Lord 
and that we are commanded to abound in the work of 
the Lord rather than blindly to accept all church work 
as equivalent to His work and that we are under no 
obligation whatever to pay a cent of tribute to any 
church, preachers, or religious body that ceases longer 
to merit our support by a close walk with God, lest we 
be partakers of their sins. But we will freely, according 
to our power, stand by the man of God, whoever or 
wherever or whatever his church affiliation who brings 
forth fruit unto God. 

The free man is under no obligation to heed the 
injunction to burn incense to the Centenary or New 
Age or Era financial programmes without discrimina¬ 
tion. If we read our New Testament aright, all con- 




272 


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tributions of the Church were given to poor and needy 
individual saints. 

Freedom from the tyranny of tradition in its old 
and new forms: deliverance from the yoke of bondage 
to the vain doctrines of mere men, which diverge from 
the pure doctrines of Christ and of God: exemption from 
the selfish spirit of proselytism, changing and labeling 
God’s sheep with new labels. Changing troops, by Ger¬ 
many, from the Eastern front in Russia to the Western 
front in France, did not give Germany more soldiers! 
Neither is the shifting process constantly going on from 
one church to another, of the Lord’s soldiers, from one 
sect name to another, a numerical gain to the kingdom. 
It is harder to labor in travail and bear sheep, than to 
steal them. 

Freedom to appeal our religious difficulties and 
differences to Jesus Himself as the final arbitrator and 
the One supreme judge of truth: to build our faith on 
the words of Jesus rather than on the words or opinions 
of fallible men like ourselves about the words of Jesus. 
Since every man must give an account of himself to God, 
every man has a right to arrive at the will of God for 
His life thru direct teaching from God thru His Word. 
Freedom to go back of all Reformers, martyrs, con¬ 
fessors, fathers and leaders, to Jesus—and yet not to 
discard any permanent values in their discoveries of 
truth, but to supplement them, all discoveries of truth 
being supplemental and not substitutional. 

Freedom from a studied effort to please men and a 
willingness positively to displease them if need be, in 
pleasing God; deliverance from the sinful respect of per¬ 
sons, Paul was as plain in speaking his convictions 




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273 


before the king as he was to Peter, the fisherman. Of 
Peter he said, “I withstood him to the face because he 
was to be blamed.” |Of the ruler he said, “Oh King, 
before whom I speak freely.” To reprove where re¬ 
proof is needed. To condone sin for the sake of favor, 
to ease those whom God is troubling for the sake of a 
return call, or to get a larger offering, is, in a holiness 
evangelist or protestant preacher, the same reprehen¬ 
sible spirit of blind conformity as that shown by the 
priests to the Roman machine of Luther’s time. 

It matters little if the soul be in the bondage of the 
dark ages, prior to the Reformation, or in bondage to 
our own Protestant system, or its allied offshoots. 
Bondage is shifted, transferred and not broken—old or 
new it is the same; bondage is bondage. How adroitly, 
in numerous instances, has Satan worked his game down 
through the ages, of shifting, transferring, relabeling, 
camouflaging, redressing the old thing Christ would 
utterly break. 

Christ makes us free from a mere churchy spirit, 
high or low, regular or independent, which is destitute 
of the Holy Spirit. The freedom promised is in the 
Son. Though He ministered in the synagogues of His 
day, he did not confine His love and operations to them. 
It can never be like Him to limit our service to a little 
charmed circle. 

He frees from drifting into mere ascetic contem¬ 
plations and abstemious hermitage with its supposed 
merit. He came in the way, not of asceticism, but eat¬ 
ing and drinking so freely that men said He was a glut¬ 
ton and a wine bibber—a tipler; He liberates the soul 
from undue attachment to mystical visions and places 




274 


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the premium on rugged righteousness; He likewise de¬ 
livers from the errors of those who magnify the Spirit's 
manifestations above the Word of God. The Spirit’s 
manifestations may more easily be counterfeited than 
that Word which liveth and abideth ever. The Spirit’s 
dispensation does not supplant the Word of God as the 
standard of faith and conduct. He is limited to the 
Word; the Word of God is His Sword the prime instru¬ 
ment through which He operates. All of His supposed 
manifestation should be subjected to the rigid test of 
accurate agreement with the Word of God. 

Christ our Emancipator, sets us free from all posi¬ 
tive, authoritative, arrogant, dogmatical assertion of 
infallible authority over us, of men like ourselves. 

He frees the soul from the inactivity of a false 
quietism, which is indolent, and lifeless: and still He 
gives us a glorious soul rest, a positive quietism, wihich 
enhances and accelerates all our work for God—The 
paradox of abounding immovability and active rest. 

The Lion of the tribe of Judah frees His children 
from the pretensions of ancient and all modern Hier¬ 
archies (priestly government) of men. We are loathe 
to admit that we may have as strongly heirarchial ten¬ 
dencies under our assumption of a superior interpre¬ 
tation of truth and presumption of greater fitness to 
guide the Lord’s sheep, as the old Hierarchy. 

Free in Christ the soul has no need of recourse to 
the torturous labyrinths of dry scholasticism, ever void 
of the Spirit. Nothing worthwhile is looked for from 
the pedantic parading of learning by the so-called 
scholars of Higher Criticism—there is liberty from the 
bondage to the subtleties of the opinions, of the school- 






MODERN THESES 


275 


men. Still He instills a profound reverence for the dis¬ 
coveries of devout and reverent consecrated scholarship 
—and but for the Renaissance of Literature there would 
have been no examination of Manuscripts of the Bible 
and no translation and no Reformation and no Protest¬ 
antism and we should be perchance still groping in the 
ignorance and superstition of the dark ages. We owe a 
debt to those earnest, devout men like Luther, which 
we shall never be able to pay, for their devout learning. 
We speak of an irreverent rationalism which fixes salva¬ 
tion in reason and the resources of men. 

Salvation from deification and dependence on the 
modern so called infallible Consciousness, which, like 
the old Antinomianism in exalting itself, sets aside the 
Word of God, making it of none effect, unaided by the 
Spirit and not harmonizing in its decisions with the 
Bible. 

A deliverance complete from all prejudice and re¬ 
spect of persons which gives its possessor joy because of 
all God’s people everywhere, North, South, East, and 
West. When Jesus commended the faith of the Cen- 
turian, who was without the regular fold of Israel, He 
assured His disciples that many would come from all 
directions, from every point of the Compass and set 
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the King¬ 
dom of God. And from those, who from special election 
to privilege, with special responsibility, who, from God’s 
choice, were chosen people, and were original children 
of the kingdom, who in exclusive narrowness loved and 
saluted only their own would come the wail of the 
rejected. 

Freedom in Christ from every merely human ordi- 




276 


MODERN THESES 


nance or form. Having Him whom they faintly typify 
at best, we do not depend on them, and yet as Mr. Wes¬ 
ley wrote: we neither neglect nor trust the means of 
grace. 

The deeper freedom in Christ includes deliverance 
from dependence on the interior inspirations of mysti¬ 
cism which often run amuck. God’s plain Word far 
transcends in authority the most powerful interior im¬ 
pressions. One, “Thus saith the Lord” is more author- 
itave to the free soul than all feelings, emotions, thrills, 
burnings, shakings, ecstasies,, visions, revelations 
dreams, heavenly choirs, supernatural manifestations 
whatever. 

A Pittsburgh judge, at the trial of the Army Cap¬ 
tain, who shot the bell boy, in Hotel Henry, said as the 
emotional element, with stage effect was introduced into 
the trial: “I won’t have the issue involved by any stage 
stuff or scenes for effect. Keep to the Law!” Ah, that 
is the way to test all our manifestations! If they speak 
or demonstrate not according to the law of God’s Word, 
it is because there is no light in them. 

An old man told the writer that he had been highly 
favored of God by an Angel visiting him and flapping 
him in the face with his downy wings. Very well, let 
us test this Angelic visit. Did he flap sin and selfishness 
and stinginess and avarice and covetousness out of the 
old miser’s heart? else he was an angel of darkness 
transforming himself into an angel of light. All false 
angelic visitations and manifestations involve in obscur¬ 
ity the great issue of salvation from sin and its insep¬ 
arable concomitants, righteousness of life, cloud this 




MODERN THESES 


277 


issue, confuse and bewilder the soul, and leave it in 
deception. 

Hence the deeper freedom in Christ is not gained 
nor sustained by dreams and visions nor chimerical 
apparitions lodged in our self-hypnotised and ground¬ 
less fancies, spiritism will give us these in abundance 
and it is a terrible reflection on the discernment of 
Christendom that the spiritists more readily discern 
satanic presence and influence than many a professor of 
Christianity. Weird ecstacy too, Satan will furnish, if 
the soul values this more than the sufficient word of God. 
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, not seek 
after signs. 

Deliverance from a Monotonous, Needless Routine: 

In a large business concern employing eight hun¬ 
dred clerks, all of whom were dependent on the morn¬ 
ing’s mail and telegrams for the work of the day, the 
question was asked the manager, “How many of these 
clerks would have sufficient resourcefulness to do or 
plan something else for the company’s interest if the 
day’s mail were lost and the telegraph lines were out 
of order?” The amazing response was: “Less than one 
man to every two hundred.” Such slaves are we to 
routine that we know not how to work outside of its 
well worn grooves. As the poet wrote: 

“There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 
Where highways never ran,” 
but they are the exceptional souls. Deprive the min¬ 
istry of the well known form of the theology of their 
sect and how many would know how to branch out in 
independent, original, constructive work? 

Finally this uninvolved freedom in Christ is not 




278 


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seasonal or spurty, sporadic or occasional, or limited in 
its manifestation to special occasions, as Paul wrote 
sharply to the Galatians, “When I am with you only,” 
but it zealously affects its possessor always, inspiring 
good deeds. Christ is its only source and sustainer; it 
is found nowhere but in the Son, and its perpetuity and 
permanence are thereby assured—“The Son abideth 
ever/’ 





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Faith Begotten and Sustained by Manifestations 
of Supernaturalism 

Not the Highest Type of Faith 

CHAPTER XXII 

This chapter is not intended to antagonize any purely 
Divine supernatural manifestations of miraculous power, 
such a course would be suicidal; but rather as a warning 
to investigate the source and prove the claims of the orgy 
of preternatural manifestations among us; and to remind 
God's children of Christ's own prophetic words about the 
multiplicity of signs and wonders which would be revealed 
in the last times from a source not Divine, but diabolical 
and Satanic , with the prominent motive back of all the 
wonders, the deception of God's elect, if it were possible. 

Multitudes heard Christ preach. Thousands and 
tens of thousands saw, or heard, authentic reports of 
His miracles of healing. Besides the numerous miracles 
which He wrought through the Father He commissioned 
and sent forth eighty-two disciples to tour Palestine with 
authority and power to perform miracles such as He 
wrought. Many hundreds were supernaturally healed 
of all manner of diseases. There were well authenti¬ 
cated instances of the dead being raised. Crowds made 
pilgrimages to interview those who had been called back 
to life by Him and His disciples. 

Rebellious winds and forces of nature were con¬ 
quered by Him. Men marvelled at the remarkable man 
who spoke the wonderful (Word which even the wind 
and waves obeyed. Demons came forth at His com- 




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mand and the word of His disciples. Dumb devils were 
exorcised, epileptics were cured so that they frothed 
and foamed no more. Lepers were cleansed, the lame, 
walked, the blind, saw, the deaf, heard, withered hands 
were restored whole, every disease in the catalogue was 
cured by His Miracle-power. Nine thousand were fed 
through the miracle of multiplying a few loaves and 
fishes. 

These miracles were witnessed by large companies 
and must have been given great publicity. Public char¬ 
acters like blind beggars, known to all, were healed. 
Sons and servants of distinguished rulers were delivered 
from the door of death. The son of a well known widow 
was called to life by Him as the sad funeral procession 
wended its way to the burying ground. The land fairly 
teemed with the accounts of the Wonder Man and His 
mighty acts of supernaturalism, wrought by the finger, 
power and authority of His Father. Climaxing all was 
the miracle of His own life and resurrection; the latter, 
thoroughly authenticated by the open and empty tomb 
and confirmed by hundreds of witnesses, some of whom 
saw, walked, ate, touched or talked with Him, after He 
burst the gates of death by the Spirit of holiness which 
dwelt in Him. 

But all of these demonstrations and manifestations 
of supernatural power were not sufficient, in themselves, 
to interest, out of the tens of thousands conversant with 
them, or who had received personal healing from Him, 
more than one hundred and twenty who really laid to 
heart the propogation of His Cause, and tarried in 
obedience to His command, for the essential enduement 
of power to carry forward His work. As one aptly 




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wrote: “Mere miracles, even His miracles, which only- 
cured the flesh—were not enough to stand the final test. ’ 
And, slightly digressing from the continuity of the 
thought, yet germane to the general subject, it could be 
added that Noah witnessed supernaturalism of a remark¬ 
able kind in the deluge and He was doubtless awed and 
deeply solemnized in his heart at such shocking exhibi¬ 
tions of Divine power in judgment, and doubtless 
earnestly resolved to ever fear and obey the awful being 
Who sent the flood upon the ungodly. How could Noah 
ever forget an experience so vivid and impressive. But 
there needs be something deeper than judgment to 
secure our obedience, and that is love and devotion to a 
Person. If we are scared into obedience when the scare 
wears off we shall be found with insufficient motive to 
hold us. Noah so soon forgets that he gets drunk. Simi¬ 
lar was the experience of Lot in witnessing the fearful 
tokens of supernatural power in the judgment of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, only the medium is fire and not water. 
Lot doubtless had similar feelings of awe, as Noah, and 
made high resolves never to forget the terrible sight. 
But how soon after his deliverance is he guilty, with his 
rescued daughters, of incest! Similar, in ineffectiveness 
to produce obedience, was the miracle of confounding the 
language at the tower of Babel, on the plains of Shinar. 
The dispersion only accelerates sin—spreading it over a 
wider area, like futile modern attempts to segregate vice. 
Likewise futile were the judgments on Pharoah and 
Egypt. While they are often essential, in the economy 
of God, yet the highest type of righteousness is never 
begotten by them. The tribulation judgments, in Reve¬ 
lation, will have a similar effect. They are to be the 




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greatest judgments ever sent of God to afflict sinners, 
and yet after the death of possibly four hundred millions, 
the rest of mankind harden their hearts and curse God. 
And finally after the unspeakably glorious manifesta¬ 
tions of the power of Christ through the reign of the 
thousand years on earth there are those who in the land 
of the righteous still persist in wickedness, serve Him 
feignedly, and deflect to the ranks of Satan when he 
ascends from the bottomless pit for the final conflict 
with the Son of God. 

The Master had an acquaintance with the super¬ 
natural power of God, in, and out-flowing, in a degree 
never equalled. By the finger of God, He cast out 
devils; by the Father’s power, He healed the sick, raised 
the dead, spoke wonderful words and performed all of 
His mighty acts. But they were not the source nor the 
secret of His miracle-life. He does not magnify them 
when giving His testimony for the reason of His life. 
He ignores utterly as a basis of faith, or its perpetuity, 
all manifestations of supernaturalism; whether in omni¬ 
science or omnipotence. Hear Him: “I live by a Per¬ 
son.” I live because of Some One! I live by the Father 
or because of the Father!” (John 6:57, R. V.). By a 
Person I live, not by miracle working power from a Per¬ 
son, but by a Person Himself. He then added, that too 
is the way for my followers to have victory: “He that 
eateth Me even he shall live by (or because of) Me”—a 
Person. 

Christ was tried and grieved when the Pharisees 
asked a sign and replied that a curious, wicked, and 
adulterous generation sought signs. He did not perform 
miracles to show off power. Herod’s idle curiosity to 




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see Christ and have Him perform for him, as the magi¬ 
cians, was not gratified though he importunated Him 
in many Words, Christ answered him nothing. 

His grief at the Jews’ request for signs was doubt¬ 
less because of His omniscience. He knew all men and 
the futility of mere faith in miracles; He sought men 
who would place in Himself a higher, purer faith, be¬ 
gotten by His own excellency and not because of His 
works. It is not said: “Trust in the manifestations of 
miracles within one’s ownself, or observed in others, for 
in their observation is security.” But, “Trust ye in the 
Lord forever: in the Lord Jehovah (Personal, Himself, 
apart from all His works) is everlasting strength.” 
Isaiah, 26:4. 

John, the beloved, adds His testimony to the insuffi¬ 
ciency of miracles as a basis for the deeper faith. “But 
though He had done so many miracles before them, yet 
they believed not on Him”. John 12:37. This was in 
confirmation of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Who hath believed 
our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord re¬ 
vealed?” Isaiah, 53:1. That report was about His being 
wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our ini¬ 
quities and His Father laying upon Him the iniquity 
of us all; about His being a sacrifice led to the slaughter 
for the transgression of His people and His soul, an 
offering for sin. To these facts of His atonement for 
sin they who saw so many signs were blinded. 

The narrative continues: “Nevertheless among the 
chief rulers also many believed on Him (that is, they 
believed on Him in the lower sense of faith in Him 
as a miracle worker and not in Him as a Saviour and a 
sacrifice for sin) but because of the Pharisees (they 




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had a faith which did not save from the fear of man') 
they did not confess Him, (that is as Messiah, Saviour; 
lest they should be put out of the synagogue: (then* 
faith was not deep enough to suffer for) for they (with 
faith in signs, still) loved the praise of men more than 
the praise of God.” John, 6:42. Their faith was not 
deep enough to purify the heart from cowardice, and 
the fear of man, and the loss of reputation. 

That the Master did not regard faith which was 
begotten or sustained by signs and wonders as the high¬ 
est type of faith is seen from His method with the 
Nobleman of Capernaum. When he besought Jesus to 
come down and heal his son who was at the point of 
death, He replied that, “Except ye signs and wonders 
(or have a faith thereby sustained) ye will not believe/’ 
The Nobleman utterly ignored the Master’s reflection 
on his faith and replied that all his faith needed was the 
presence of Jesus Himself. “Sir, come down, ere my 
child die.” Jesus rewarded His pure faith with a word 
of promise, only. “Go thy way: thy son liveth.” John 
4:45-53. 

That the Master highly prizes faith which is sus¬ 
tained only by His Word, unsupported by signs and 
wonders is seen in that the moment the Nobleman be¬ 
lieved His word the suffering son was healed. 

Again in the case of the Centurion whose servant 
was sick, recorded in Matthew eighth chapter, the Mas¬ 
ter finds, rejoices in, and rewards, pure faith in His 
Word. The Centurion confessed his unworthiness co 
have the Master come under his roof, requested a word 
only from Jesus and his servant should be healed. This 
is one of two instances on record where Jesus marvelled; 




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not finding so great faith, no, not in all Israel. (Again 
where “He marvelled that there was no intercessor”). 
There is no record that He ever marvelled at the faith) 
of those who believed because they witnessed a sign of 
His power... His benediction is pronounced on those who 
have not seen and yet have believed. He does not 
gratify the cry of unbelief, when on the cross, “If He 
be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the 
cross, and we will believe Him.” Matt. 27:42. He re¬ 
verses not God’s order, faith first, jand then sight. 
“Believest thou, (note the order of the words), thou 
shalt see greater things than these”, He said to Nathaniel. 
The disciples who said to Him, “We believe, and are 
sure,” are commended. 

That He did not place dependability in those whose 
faith was in His miracle working power merely, is seen 
further: “When He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, 
in the feast day, many believed in His Name when they 
saw the miracles which he did.” The inference is that 
they would have had no faith in Him apart from be¬ 
holding the miracles or, R. V. “signs”. In their eager¬ 
ness to see miracles wrought, in their enthusiasm for 
the wonderful, they overlooked the greatest of all 
miracles, His Personality! It is immediately stated, as 
though He would have them get the distinction between 
fatih in Him because of witnessing miracles performed 
by Him and faith in Himself apart from them— “But 
Jesus did not commit Himself to them, (who only be¬ 
lieved in Him because of His miracle-working power, 
as they would believe in a magician), because He knew 
all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; 
for He knew what was in man.” John 2:23-25. He espe- 




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daily knew what was in the man whose faith in Him 
was begotten by beholding miracles. He knew that 
there must be the constant manifestation of the super¬ 
natural to sustain it; and that this type of man would 
consider the symmetical, comprehensive Word of 
God, which is not limited to one phase of life and mani¬ 
festations, which covers every phase of life, common¬ 
place and ordinary, in its righteousness producing 
power, if unaccompanied by |supernatural signs and 
wonders. He seeks in men the deeper faith in Himself 
alone, in what He is apart from what He does. He per¬ 
formed many miracles but miracles with Him were 
incidental not paramount. Faith in Himself, the Miracle 
Worker is greater than faith in Him because He is a 
Worker of Miracles. In the economy of God miracles 
have their place. But they are insufficient. They are 
at best but a work of omnipotence. The Omnipotent 
Worker is greater than any omnipotent work He per¬ 
forms. He is to be loved for what He Himself intrin¬ 
sically is; the vulgar crowd has ever and will ever more 
readily follow after supernaturalism than it will follow 
the Supernatural One! 

Nicodemus was imbued with an exaggerated con¬ 
ception of the importance of the miracles. He thought, 
apparently, that by recognition of Christ as the miracle 
worker he would have a common ground of fellowship 
with him. So he introduces the conversation with the 
subject of miracles, conceding what all of his time con¬ 
ceded, that Christ was a great miracle worker. “Rabbi, 
we know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for 
no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except 
God be with Him.” Jesus utterly ignores the corhpli- 




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287 


ment and procedes to talk of higher things than faith in 
a miracle worker and miracles, which only heal the 
body, to the greater miracle wlhich heals the soul. 
“Jesus answered and said unto him, “Verily, verily 
(solemn affirmation of truth) I (the miracle worker) 
say unto you, except a man be born again, (anew) he 
cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus had 
greater faith and interest in beholding miracles and 
conversing with the miracle wprker than he had for the 
birth of the Spirit, just as there seems today under a 
revived Montanism a greater interest in seeing signs and 
wonders than in the rugged righteousness and holiness 
of heart and life God demands as essential to the enjoy¬ 
ments and employments of the real kingdom of heaven: 
whose fruit is righteousness and joy and peace in the 
Holy Ghost. And there is more desire for the super¬ 
natural evidences of the Spirit than those fruits of the 
Spirit which are described as “all goodness and right¬ 
eousness and truth, proving what is acceptable to the 
Lord.” 

That faith in manifestations of Omniscience, is not 
as great as faith in the Omniscient One, is seen in His 
conversation with the woman at the well. .She con¬ 
fessed faith in the Messiah’s omniscience: “When 
Messiah cometh, which is called Christ; when He is 
come, He will tell us all things.” John 4:25. Jesus 
ignored the compliment to His omniscience and gave 
her credit for faith in the Person of the Omniscient One 
apart from signs, or having all knowledge. “Jesus saith 
unto her, I that speak unto thee am He.” He did not 
say, “He, the Omniscient One, or miracle worker,” but 
He, just He, Messias, Saviour. And whilst many of the 




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city of Samaria believed, on the testimony of the woman, 
as to His Omniscience, revealed in telling her all the 
things she ever did (though He did not do this but only 
told her she had had too many husbands and was then 
living with the wrong husband; but when she saw Him 
she saw all her sins and thought that He told her of 
them all), many more believed because of His own Word 
and they gave a nobler testimony of purer faith, unsus¬ 
tained by the omniscience at which the woman so mar¬ 
velled. “We have heard Him ourselves and know that 
this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world/’ 
John 4:42. Faith in Himself as Saviour, faith in His 
own Word, apart from all supports, is the faith He seeks 
in us. 

Again, that faith in Him because of miraculous 
manifestations, or examples of omniscience, is insuffi¬ 
cient to sustain in the hour of testing, is seen in the con¬ 
fession of the disciples of faith in Him based on another 
example He gave them of His omniscience, and His 
comment on such faith, just prior to His going to the 
cross: “Now we are sure that Thou knowest all things, 
and needest not that any man should ask Thee.” John 
16:30. “By this we believe that Thou earnest forth from 
God.” 

“Jesus answered them, do ye now believe?” Be¬ 
cause you see I know all things past and future, and 
believe in Me because of this is not enough to preserve 
you from failure in the dark hour of trial just ahead. 
He immediately adds those solemn Words, that, placing 
faith, in Him merely because of a demonstration of 
omniscience will not sustain them, yea, they will all, 
deceived by such surface faith, desert Him in His hour 




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289 


of sorest need. “Behold the hour cometh, yea and now 
is (while ye say ye now believe because I am Omnis¬ 
cient) that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, 
and shall leave me alone.” And foreshadowing those 
words illustrative of highest and purest faith, uttered on 
the cross when the Father was not consciously present, 
when the fearful cry in agony is wrung from his lips: 
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me,”—but 
faith triumphing witnesses: “Into thy hands I commend 
my spirit.” 

John, the Baptist, gives us an illustration of pure 
faith unsustained by signs. On hearing of the resur¬ 
rection of the widow of Nain’s son, he was not satisfied 
with the miracle alone as evidence, but sends immed¬ 
iately to the supernatural Worker and through chosen 
messengers asks, “Art Thou He, that should come, or 
look we for Another?” Jesus allowing supernaturalism 
its place, but not the highest place, recites to the mes¬ 
sengers of John the miracles He had performed and 
tells them to go to John and tell him what He had don~ 
in healing the sick and raising the dead. But lest undue 
importance should be attached to the signs, or a greater 
deference paid to them than to the Sign Worker He 
says, “And blessed is He whosoever shall not be offended 
in Me”, as though He would call especial attention to 
the greatness of His Person as worthy of more honor 
than all miracles. Luke 7 :12-23. 

When Jesus refers to the giving of His great com¬ 
mission to the disciples, with the authority it included, 
and the power to tread on serpents and scorpions and 
over all the power of the enemy; and its protection 
front all forms of injury, He gives a strong caution 





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about the danger of over-rating supernaturalism: “Not¬ 
withstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits are sub¬ 
ject to you; but rather rejoice, because your names are 
written in heaven.” Luke 10:17-20. 

He also calls their attention to the fact that in the 
desire for the possession and exercise of a greater super- 
naturalism, Satan fell as lightning from heaven. In 
other words, regeneration and sanctification the pre¬ 
requisites to the full enrollment of the name in heaven 
are greater than to have power to work signs and won¬ 
ders of healing or the exorcising or casting out of 
devils, even when done in His Name. 

“Yea rather, (double emphasis) blessed are they 
that hear the Word of God and keep it.” Luke 11:27-29, 
was spoken in response to the woman's reference to the 
supernaturalism connected with His miraculous con¬ 
ception birth and sustenance, (impliedly,) and in rebuke 
of an evil and adulterous generation which sought a 
sign or supernaturalism. 

The Master looks for a faith in His people which 
is not sustained by miracles—a faith, a mighty faith, 
which sees His promise and looks to that alone. 

A man may be more enthusiastic about miracles he 
has witnessed than about rugged righteousness of life— 
than holiness in all manner of living. The Spirit has 
many manifestations and none are more essential than 
all “goodness, righteousness and truth.” 

The disappearance of a goitre through the prayer 
of faith for healing is truly wonderful but more impor¬ 
tant is it to give u$ him who is not the right husband, 
or her who is not the right wife, John 4:18. To marvel 
so much at the goitre’s disappearance while keeping the 




MODERN THESES 


291 


wrong wife or husband, is deception of the enemy wlho 
ever clouds the issue of righteousness, with his Christ- 
prophesied signs and wonders to deceive. 

We must ever be on the alert against the tendency 
of enthusiasm for supernaturalism, even of the purely 
Divine origin, and its manifestations, to obscure our 
enthusiasm for righteousness: for Our Lord is not only 
the mighty miracle Worker, but He is also and espe¬ 
cially, “The Lord our righteousness/’ He makes us 
wise to the right, imparting to us a righteousness like 
His own and a reverence for all the Word of God; and 
a propriety which avoids the very appearance of evil. 

When men speak in tongues and chew tobacco at 
the same time and refuse to speak to a neighbor, or 
knock a fellow-being down in a fit of anger, there is a 
question from what origin the tongues come. 

It may be easier to speak in another tongue than to 
speak to our neighbor in his native tongue, who is 
alienated from us and refuses to speak. 

Tongues operate on the organs of articulation, holi¬ 
ness on the heart. It is not said except a man speak in 
another tongue he can not see the Lord, but it is said 
that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” 

It must be remembered Satan is a supernatural 
being with supernatural powers and has subjects 
through whom he manifests these powers in counter¬ 
feit illuminations, healings, raptures, levitations, ecsta- 
cies, revelations, inspirations and speaking in tongues, 
as the Mormons, Mohammedans, fanatics and Spiritists. 
It is easier, with Satan’s aid, to be preter-natural than 
to be natural. 




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God's miracles are benevolent and frequently lead 
to saving faith and righteousness; Satan’s miracles ever 
to deception and all deceivableness of unrighteousness. 

Magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism, mob-psy¬ 
chology, psychology, telepathy, thought transference, 
communications with the departed, are everyday facts, 
but what concerns our eternal welfare is to know their 
source.—Not the signs and wonders, but their source; 
not the revelations, but who gives them; not the 
heavenly choirs, but who are the singers; not the speak¬ 
ing in tongues, but who inspires the speaking; Oh, for 
that heavenly wisdom and discernment to try the spirits 
and to know which are of God. 

It is not said, unless one speak in other tongues, 
he cannot see the Lord, but unless he have a pure heart, 
and holiness of life its output, no man shall see the 
Lord. Matt., 5 :8, Hebrews 12:14. 

Jesus did not encourage the sentiment that the 
raising of the beggar, Lazarus, from the dead, and the 
sending him to the five brothers of the rich man in hell, 
with his testimony of resurrection would benefit them 
while they neglected to hear Moses and the prophets— 
for, “if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither 
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” 
That is, when one rejects the Word of God, given by the 
prophets of God, as a sufficient basis of faith, a faith 
acceptable to God, cannot be produced any other way— 
not even by the miracle of raising one from the dead, for 
faith, pure faith, comes by hearing, not by beholding 
miracles, and hearing, by the Word of God. 

Summing up: The Highest Type of Faith is not: 

Faith in a special place of worship, like this Mount 




MODERN THESES 


293 


Gerizim; for wherever two or three are met in His 
Name He is there. 

It is not faith in a special form or ritual of worship, 
for the Father seeks those to worship 'Him who worship 
in Spirit and truth. 

The highest faith is not faith in a changed social 
order eliminating toil in labor as the woman of Samaria 
sought: “That I come not hither again to draw water.” 
Salvation from toil while persisting in sin, its cause. 

Nor is it faith in a mere prophet forth telling events: 
“I perceive that Thou are a prophet.” Christ saves us 
not by His prophetic function but by His sacrifice. The 
Jews would accept Him as a great prophet, but reject 
Him as a Saviour atoning for sin. 

Not faith in the happiness of salvation from physical 
labor, but joy in it, working heartily as unto the Lord. 

It is not faith in Omniscience: “When Messias 
comes He will tell us all things,” but faith in Him with¬ 
out manifestations of all knowledge. 

Nor is the highest faith, faith in God with a man, 
but in God apart from the man. 

Nor in miracles, signs and wonders: Jesus rebuked 
placing faith in them, said an evil and adulterous gen¬ 
eration sought them, and, reproachfully, “Except ye see 
signs and wonders ye will not believe.” 

Nor faith merely in this man who could raise the 
dead, but faith in His Word apart from, or without the 
confirmation of raising the dead. 

It is conceded, that often it is said, that seeing the 
miracles He performed, men and women believed on 
Him, but we think we have abundantly proven our 
theses from the words of the Master, that this type of 




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faith begotten by witnessing miracles was the lowest 
type of faith—a faith not purely in Jesus Himself, but 
in His miracles, a faith which starts and must be fed on 
miracles, is the lowest form of faith. And, doubtless 
from the great enthusiastic company who loved to see 
the m;iracles performed came many of those surface 
hearers, who had not much root in themselves of a 
deep abiding faith in the Person of Christ, who, anon, 
with joy, received the word, under the tense atmosphere 
of beholding the supernatural, but by and by when 
affliction or persecution arose because of the Word, and 
when away from the atmosphere they were easily 
offended, and lacking the proper rootage in Christ, 
withered. Faith in Christ which is the result of getting 
a first seat where the miracles are performed, which 
gratifies curiosity, most prominent in the Fall of Man, 
cannot please God. Man cannot feed on the super¬ 
natural, nor continually follow up the reports of the 
most striking demonstrations, as that is costly. Jesus 
himself is the bread of life, not His miracles. He alone 
satisfies. Curiosity may be gratified, stimulated, fed, 
and the soul still be lean and empty. Jesus Himself 
must draw near. We must be content with Himself 
alone. Like the Greeks, “We would see Jesus.” It is 
significant that Jesus then said: “Now is the Son of Man 
glorified,” we have glorified all else. God, give us to 
look up and see no man save Jesus only. 

Miracles, used by Christ, have their place in the 
plan of God, but they are not the agency of the salva¬ 
tion of the soul; the Word of God has been given for 
that. “The law of the Lord is perfect converting the 
soul.” We are born again by the Word of God which 




MODERN THESES 


295 


liveth and abideth forever. We are cleansed by the 
Word... “Now ye are clean through the word which I 
have spoken unto you.” “Sanctify them through thy 
truth.” We grow by the Word of God. “Desire the 
sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby.” 
We are sanctified by the Word: “Now I commend you 
to God and to the word of His grace which is able to 
build you up and give you a place among them which 
are sanctified.” The witnessing of supernaturalism will 
never take the place of the Word of God, which, when 
received with meekness, is able to save the soul; or the 
Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth. 

In answering the question concerning the signs of 
His coming Jesus told the disciples: 

“Take heed lest any man deceive (R. V. ‘lead astray’) 
you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am 
Christ, and shall deceive many (R. V. ‘lead many astray*). 
*********And then if any man shall say to you, lo, here 
is Christ; or, lo, He is there; believe them not: for 
false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew 
signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even 
the elect.” Mark 13, 5, 6, and 21st verses. 

All purely Divine miracles are performed with a 
benevolent motive and often lead to a changed heart 
and life of righteousness, with love and reverence for 
God, Christ, His blood and Word. 

All Satanic miracles, as the Master warns, have the 
underlying motive to deceive—to blind the mind to 
Christ; they confuse and mystify the soul. Performers 
of Satanic miracles deny and make light of sin and the 
atonement, and they repudiate eternal punishment of 





296 


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the wicked, the doctrine of hell being especially repul¬ 
sive to them. They magnify the body over the soul, 
and miracles over grace, they antagonize Christ as a 
Saviour through sacrifice. Deception is the actuating 
motive of the numerous Satanic miracles Christ warned 
His followers would appear in the last days. The land 
today teems with the miraculous and this writer re¬ 
joices in all that which is purely divine but sounds a 
note of warning against the numerous false Satanic mir¬ 
acles prevalent which invariably have the ear mark, to 
deceive the soul by miracles from, pure faith in Christ, 
substituting faith in miracles. 

Satanic miracles are evident. They are easily ex¬ 
plained. Satan afflicts the body. He can also remove 
the affliction he imposes. He does this in Christian 
Science, more accurately, Eddyism, and all false Satanic' 
healing. But He always leaves the soul in sin and the 
heart unchanged and the spirit filled with bitterness to 
Christ as an Atonement for sin. The poor dupe is in¬ 
troduced into the preternatural realm and not able to 
discriminate sources, thinks he is highly favored of God 
with a superior revelation to that of his less favored 
fellows. Hence the healing of the body is the great, 
theme of thought and conversation, while the soul and 
the only remedy of its healing, the blood of Christ, is 
despised. 

Never did Satan so fill the world with all power 
of deceiveableness and with lying wonders as today and 
never did the children of God so need that unction of 
the Holy Ghost which John says gives particular dis¬ 
cernment of what is of God and that which is of Anti- 
Christ. 




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297 


Today, it is not a matter of work, everywhere there 
is the busy bustling of work, but the burning question 
for the Christian is, for Whom are you working? 

It is not a question whether you have been illum¬ 
inated or converted or animated but who is the source 
of the illumination, the conversion, and animation? 

It is not the why of impressions but from whence 
come the impressions? Nor of guidance, but by whom 
are we guided? 

The question is not worship, the world is full of 
worship, but whom do we worship? Satan, in whom the 
whole world is reposing, or Jehovah? Forget not that 
Satan offered Christ the kingdoms of the world, with 
all their glory, for a single act of homage or worship 
from Christ. Satan is God’s great competitor for wor¬ 
ship! He is the god of this world. 

It is not a matter of religion, but what kind of re¬ 
ligion have we, false or true? 

Nor, even of a God, but which God is ours; the god 
of this world, that old serpent, the devil, or the God of 
our Lord Jesus Christ? 

Nor is it a question of having power and influence 
over men, for all have that in some degree, and men of 
the world in an exceptional degree in all walks and pro¬ 
fessions, but the question is through whom do we have 
the power? Satan has power to give power. 

Finally the question is not of bodily healing, but 
who is the source of the healing? 

The Master gives the'premium of blessing to those 
who saw not and yet believed: “Thomas, because thou 
hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are they who 
have not seen and yet have believed.” 




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He commends the Syrophoenecian woman for great 
faith in the absence of all supernaturalism to encourage 
it, and in the presence of positive discouragements and 
divinely imposed tests to hinder it, but which her pure 
faith transcended and won His commendation: “Oh, 
woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee the according 
to thy faith”; or, literally, “help yourself.” 

The exercise of supernatural gifts is no evidence of 
sanctification, but an evidence that the recipient has 
those gifts which may or may not imply the salvation of 
the possessor, but holiness is definitely given in response 
to definite consecration and definite faith and it is abso¬ 
lutely essential, for without it no man shall see the Lord. 
Many are speaking in tongues and professing holiness 
too, who still live in sin. 

In the seventh chapter of Isaiah the Lord is repre¬ 
sented as asking King Ahaz to ask of Him a sign: “Ask 
thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the 
depth, or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will 
not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.” Thus we find 
asking signs tempts God, wearies Him, grieves Him, 
and those asking them are said to be an evil and adul¬ 
terous generation seeking signs; Satan is also thereby 
given ground to enter in with counterfeit signs. 

The writer is far from believing that the day of 
miracles is past but he is solemnly warned by His Lord 
not to receive everything that breaks out from the upper 
air, the realm of Satan and all the Hosts with the prince 
of the power of the air, as of God. 

After all our fads and fancies have run their course, 
religious and otherwise, Christ remains ever, we return 
to Him for abiding rest. 




MODERN THESES 


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“Then those men (who had witnessed the mirac¬ 
ulous feeding of the five thousand) when they had seen 
the miracle that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth that 
prophet that should come into the world. When Jesus 
therefore perceived that they would come and take him 
by force, to make him a king, He departed again into a 
mountain Himself alone.” John, 6:14-15. 

Jesus was not seeking the leadership of the rabble! 
He preached not to gain a following from the motlev 
throng! He was manifestly disappointed with the result 
of the great feeding miracles; for when they would make 
Him their leader He steals away to the mountain alone. 
The great lesson He wished to convey is lost. He had 
in mind to teach them that there is a more essential 
bread than they had eaten. The outburst of popular 
enthusiasm to crown Him “king of feeders” necessitates 
His withdrawal and the postponement of the deeper les¬ 
son. The multitude was quick to see the advantage of 
a leader who could make bread at will! They had 
visions of bread without work! Salvation from toil 
rather than from sin looked good to them! The world 
will quickly vote any one king who can get them easy 
bread! Who can reverse the Almighty's fiat “in the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”. Hence they 
quickly trace Him to the next feeding station, only to 
hear His withering rdbuke for their low motives in fol¬ 
lowing Him: “Jesus answered them and said, Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, ye seek me, not because ye saw 
the miracles, (their faith was not as high as the low 
faith which is begotten by miracles) but because ye did 
eat of the loaves and were filled.” 

How appalling is the spiritual blindness of the 




300 


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natural heart! After He imperatively commands them 
not to labor for the meat which perishes and tells them 
the only work God requires of them is to believe on Him 
whom He had sent; after they had seen the marvelous 
miracle of feeding five thousand with a few loaves and 
fishes, they ask Him to show them a sign that they may 
see and believe! Witnessing miracles had not changed 
the stony heart! Feeding the stomach had not! 

The great multitude wtfio were so willing to follow 
Him for literal bread were unable to see how He could 
give them His flesh to eat—true bread. How they could 
by faith appropriate the saving merits of His atonement? 
They could believe the manna story of Moses but could 
not see how there could be spiritual manna for the soul— 
28,000,000,000 pounds of manna given the Jews was not 
enough to enable them to see that it was typical of a more 
widely diffused spiritual manna which was to feed not 
only Jews but to give life unto the world. That manna 
they knew about only fed the body which died. His 
manna would feed the soul and anyone eating it would 
live for ever. This was too much—a hard saying who 
can bear it? And from that time many of His disciples 
went back and walked no more with Him. Jesus is 
winnowing the five thousand multitude! Turning to the 
twelve who are left, one of whom He said was a devil, 
He asked, “Will ye also go away?” Will ye follow the 
departing loaf and fish disciples, or will ye love me 
for what I am rather than what you can get from me? 
Simon Peter nobly replied, “Lord to whom shall we go? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe 
(note the order) and are sure that thou art that Christ, 
the Son of the living God.” Humanity has not changed! 




MODERN THESES 


301 


the multitude will still follow the cheap demagogue! 
they like to be faked! anyone coming in his own name 
will be warmly welcomed! To come in the name of 
Christ is to share His fate! Men will respond to the 
call which offers loaves and fishes! they like the appeal 
which promises health for the body but says little in 
burning words of the sin of the soul, too often the cause 
of the body’s ills. 






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303 


Kind Words of Remonstrance with 
Sectarianists 

CHAPTER XXIII 

What is the other side of the question? It has 
another side and fair-minded people will welcome its 
evidence. 

Let us emphatically say that we do not condemn 
organized sectarian churches (or others) en toto. We 
recognize all of them as fellowshipping many of the best 
people of God. We are not saying they should not be 
organized. But we do say that all church organizations 
are fallible and have much in them that is of human 
origin at the best, and no matter what the auspices under 
which they are launched, and however clear the divine 
leading seemed to be, yet the human element of frailty 
is in them all in their inception and through their pro¬ 
gress. 

This fact alone calls for sympathy from each, to 
the other’s defects. We should view always what we 
think are defects in others, without contempt. If God 
must tolerate defects in one church, He may as consis¬ 
tently tolerate them in another. They are deplorable 
in any. 

One strong argument used by those who would 
have all leave the older church and join some one of the 
many smaller churches, is that the Scriptures tell us to 
“Come out and be separate,” and it is argued that unless 
we do, we become partakers of the sins of the churches. 
But does.not this argument prove too much? Does it 
notion the same ground, call all of us out of all church 




304 


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organizations and governments too? Are we not, by our 
own argument, a partaker of the corruption in the 
smaller churches? The good, clean people in the smaller 
churches are not responsible for the sin in them. Neither 
are the good, clean people of the larger churches respon¬ 
sible for the sin in them. 

“But,” says one, “there is more of it in the larger 
church organizations than in the lesser ones.” This is 
because they are numerically stronger. Let the weaker 
churches suddenly spring into great numerical strength, 
and the present inconsistencies would doubtless be pro¬ 
portionally greater. 

I am not responsible for the whiskey traffic and 
other crimes which occur in the United States, though I 
pay taxes to the United Government. Yet, I would not 
abet nor aid in any direct way, the sins of the govern¬ 
ment. Jesus encouraged the paying of taxes to Caesar; 
in fact, performed a miracle to pay his own and Peter’s 
taxes, and taught men to render to Caesar the things 
which were Caesar’s. He also commended the poor 
widow for casting her mite into the treasury of God; 
though the Jewish synagogue was not without its 
corrupting leaven. Paul wrote—“I wrote you in an 
epistle not to company with fornicators. Yet not alto¬ 
gether with the fornicators of this world, or with the 
covetous, or extortioners, or with idolators; for then 
must ye needs go out of the world.” 

Christ s commendation would seemingly justify pay¬ 
ing taxes to the state, and bringing offerings to the 
house of God, even though both might harbour much 
that is perverted. This practice is strongly condemned 
:by strong ■ sectarianism. Yet funds put in strictly holi- 




MODERN THESES 


305 


ness churches are oftentimes productive of very little 
results, too. 

To continue Paul’s quotation: “But now I have 
written unto you not to keep company if any man be 
called a brother and be a fornicator, or covetous, or an 
idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or ah extortioner.” 

Jesus said that his disciples were “in the world 
but not of it.” On the same ground it logically follows 
that they may be “in the church but not of it”, as far 
as partaking of its evils is concerned. (Speaking, let 
it be remembered in terms of church organization, not 
of the church as on organism, the Body and Bride of 
Christ). The church manifestly was not, and is not as 
the evil world, which Jesus said they could remain in 
and not be of. He does not mean that they were to 
partake of, or fellowship evil, though He allows them to 
be in an evil world and formal church. If, in every 
nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, 
is acceptable to Him, then surely the same argument 
is applicable to everyone working righteousness in every 
denomination. The denominations are in the nations. 

A strong objection to spiritual people remaining in 
larger churches is that their leadership is wrong; but 
there is enough corruption among leaders of smaller 
churches too, and while that of the larger is of the spirit, 
the other, more frequently, are overcome by sins of the 
flesh. When the prophecy of Daniel about the many 
among the leaders falling, is being fulfilled among all, 
those who are preserved should not, like Peter, boast, “I 
never will deny, thee, Lord”, but pray, “Grant I never 
may.” 

I am not ^to blame for worldly, secrecy fellowship- 




306 


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ping, compromising preachers, hut I am responsible not 
to compromise myself. 

The condition of fellowship is not contingent on 
membership in any one evangelical church above 
another, but on walking in the light as He is in the light, 
and everyone who walks in the light of God, irrespective 
of his denominational affiliation, has fellowship with 
every other one who walks in the light, regardless of his 
church relationship. Fellowship is effortless, we do not 
try to have it, we do have fellowship with all, every¬ 
where, who walk in His light. The condition of fellow¬ 
ship is, thus, not contingent on joining any organiza¬ 
tion, but on walking like Someone ! 

Take the example of Jesus. He early affiliated Him¬ 
self with the Jewish synagogue and never left it for¬ 
mally, though it was fully as formal and corrupt as any 
modern evangelical church. Take the prophets: God 
kept them amidst the sin and dearth of the people of 
their time, to cry aloud against their sin. This they 
could not have done by deserting them. 

The pessimistic attitude which cries that the old 
church is dead, spiritually, etc., cuts off much effort to 
obey the command to pluck brands from the burning, 
and doing some real heroic rescue work, though the by¬ 
ways and hedges are still numerous, Where we can go 
and compel sinners to come in. 

This pessimistic attitude also cuts off much prayer and 
work for their salvation and deserts those (many of 
whom are caused to err by their leaders) whom God 
would save. 

To consign all to hell in other folds, who follow not 
with us (which is frequently done in some centers) is 




MODERN THESES 


307 


to admit that we were under condemnation and exposed 
to damnation ourselves when we were in them. If we 
are soured and prejudiced toward others without our fold, 
we cannot obey the command to deliver those who are 
drawn out to death in other folds, so far as lies in our 
power. 

This un-Christlike attitude presents the amazing 
picture of loathing the mother who bore us. It is very 
bad form to tell tales on the mother who gave us birth. 
The heart should be filled with pity because there are 
family troubles. If she is sick and ready to die, there 
is need of the greater sympathy. 

A strong objection to spiritual people remaining in 
the larger churches is that the leadership of these 
churches is unspiritual. That may be conceded to be too 
frequently true; but the objection proves too much as 
the leadership of the smaller churches is not always 
what it should be; and while that the of larger churches 
is frequently sin of the spirit of the others it is more 
often the sin of the flesh: neither has room for the criti¬ 
cism of the other for Paul exhorts to cleansing from all 
the filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit: as both are 
wrong both should get right with God and each other 
and remove the soul stumbling block from the world. 
The destructive critic and the adulterer shall both have 
their place in the lake of fire. 

Our little girl was ill; she was very low; the more 
ill she got, the more earnestly wife and I prayed. The 
church is very sick. Pray the more earnestly for her 
recovery. “But,” says one, “she never will recover; she 
is too fare gone.” This may be relatively true, still many 
in her may be reached by a Christ-like course. (We 




308 


MODERN THESES 


think of one, among many, who won hundreds for God 
and is now a flaming missionary). But, then, it may be 
said there is as much hope of winning formal church 
members, as Pharisaical people. 

The tolerance of the exclusive, small church de¬ 
votee, will be enlarged, if he takes an inventory of all 
those within his fold who were born again and raised 
as lambs in other folds, and received by him without 
birth agonies. He should especially remember the 
Apostle Paul’s attitude: “Not boasting of things without 
our measure, that is of other men’s labour, but having 
hope when your faith is increased, that we shall be en¬ 
larged by you according to our rule abundantly (which 
rule is) to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, 
and not to boast in another man’s line of things made 
ready to our hand.” 

It seems the apostle would as soon take the material 
out of another man’s house to build his own, as to steal 
the fruit of another man’s labour to build up his own 
reputation as a church organizer. Hence, to avoid this 
contingency, Paul laboured where others had not. 

Again, Jesus said, “Other sheep I have which are 
not of this fold.” Now see the Divine interest in those 
outside of His fold (the Jewish fold)—“them also I mus* 
bring.” The command to “go rather to the lost sheep 
of the House of Israel,” in its exclusiveness, is thus en¬ 
larged. Those in other folds (the Gentiles) are evidently 
on the Saviour’s heart. He is interested in them. They 
are to be subjects of His atoning grace. Where did 
God find the reader? May He not find others there? 
The Jews wanted to limit God to themselves but Jesus 
said His Father’s house was a house of prayer for all 




MODERN THESES 


309 


nations and not the Jewish nation only. He was not 
the light of Judea but of the world. Neither is He the 
light only of our little denominational world. 

What a spectacle some churches present to intelli¬ 
gent eyes! They got three-fourths or more, of the mem¬ 
bership they now possess, from the various mother 
churches,., but—Amazing!—they now turn around and 
consign her to Hell, yet she gave the material out of 
which their churches are constructed. Be patient, sht 
may yet give more children. Is this forgetting, this in¬ 
gratitude, a manifestation of Perfect Love? 

Jesus rebuked the Jews because they did not see 
that His Father’s House was a House of Prayer for all 
Nations (including denominations). They wanted to 
limit it to a House of Prayer for the Jewish nation. How 
narrow! The larger interests of Christ’s kingdom tran¬ 
scend the interests of any one branch of it. 

The Spirit is calling for unity among all lovers of 
Jesus; heart unity, organic unity—not mere outward 
unity—the Church which is His Body, flesh of His flesh 
and bone of His bone, in which all have been baptized 
into One Spirit,—the Body of which He is the Head. 

We know of entire churches being organized out 
of the fruit of the labors of some faithful evangelist, who 
felt God had called him to remain in some one of the 
old churches. Yet this same church calls his type of 
evangelism, spurious and popular. What type is it 
which gets no one into the Kingdom? 

Jesus ate and mingled with publicans and sinners, 
not to justify their sin, but to do a work of regenera¬ 
tion. Might not others mingle with church people with 
the same motive, i. e., to bring to them the message of 





310 


MODERN THESES 


the regenerating power of Jesus Christ? We send mis¬ 
sionaries to the heathen, should we not show a mission¬ 
ary spirit to the lost ones in the church organization? 
Is not the rebuke God gave to Peter after he had been 
sanctified by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, sadly 
needed? Peter would not associate with the unclean, 
as he thought in his narrowness that Cornelius was, 
being a Gentile, yet God had received him. “What God 
has cleansed, call thou not common or unclean/’ Are 
we not in great danger of repeating Peter’s mistake? 
After Peter was cured, he humbly testified: “I perceive 
in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh right¬ 
eousness, is acceptable to Him.” 

Again, take the example of Jesus. He transcended 
the sectarian narrowness of His environment and 
reached out beyond the Jews, in a world-wide provi¬ 
sional love to all mankind. Can it ever be like Him to 
limit our love to our own little church? The Jews de¬ 
spised the Samaratins; had no dealings with them. Jesus 
ministered to them salvation at the expense of losing 
favor with the Jews. 

Take the apostle Paul’s example of tolerance. “They 
of the circumcision have been a comfort to me.” Paul 
working with those of the circumcision as co-workers, 
and both possessing such measure of Divine love as 
mutually to comfort each other. Sectarian party lines 
were entirely obliterated. Think of Annanias fearing to 
fellowship Paul whom God had received! A walk with 
God down Straight Street, fixed him up all right. He 
then said, “Brother Saul.” 

It may be hard for some of us to follow Messenger’s 
example of the Burning Bush and confess that we have 




MODERN THESES 


311 


been wrong, uncharitable and un-Christlike in our atti¬ 
tude to other children of God, but repentance is the 
Bible remedy for this sin, like all other sins. 

Then reflect. The extreme sectarian attitude 
assumes to be the infallible church, which is impossible 
when it is composed of fallible men. We censor others. 
Who will censor the censors? 

Again it is objected, “But we are not as corrupt as 
larger churches.” Again you have not thought. You 
have twenty or thirty thousand members and the others 
have thirty million. Again, you are blinded by limited 
opportunities to observe the defects of your own church 
at large. 

There have been many cases of gross sin in all 
churches. The heart sinks as we recall them all. Are 
the innocent responsible? If frailities, foibles, infirmities 
and sins are found in the smaller church, why marvel that 
churches, Which are larger, have similar defects? 

We are justifying wrong in neither; simply affirm¬ 
ing that it is as liable to occur in one as in the other. 
The tares, the Savour said, would grow with the wheat 
till the end. None but He is competent to separate 
them. 

Said an Editor of a strongly sectarian paper, after 
telling of what a certain number of M. E. preachers did, 
“This is a sample of what you swallow when you go intc, 
and remain in, the old church.” Very well, it is just as 
fair to say, “You swallow the sensuality and avarice of 
the smaller churches by your membership in them.” 

Those who observe closely know many professors 
who are like the Pharisees, they say and do not; rob God 
of tithes and offerings. They frequently will not speak 




312 


MODERN THESES 


to their loved ones, are sour, stubborn, self-willed, de¬ 
nunciatory, prejudiced, unforgiving and ugly in tone, 
temper, manner and look, and thru it all, their own child- 
dren are set against God, and well-nigh unreachable by 
the gospel. 

This is a sample of what you swallow according to 
the inevitable conclusions of your own logic, when you 
join the smaller church. Away with such fallacious 
reasoning. “Every man shall give an account of him¬ 
self to God.” 

We are not supporting the pride, secrecy or world¬ 
liness, so prevalent in many older churches, but we are 
saying it is not any more reasonable to make the good, 
pure, clean conscientious Christ-like members of these 
folds responsible for these conditions, than it is to say a 
good holiness brother is responsible for the inconsis¬ 
tencies which creep in the holiness churches. 

Are the clean citizens of the American government 
to blame for the whiskey or white-slave traffic? Nay, 
to aver this is folly. Likewise, pure Christians are not 
to blame for the tares with the wheat; provided they do 
all in their power to correct said conditions in govern¬ 
ment and church. Christ was patient enough to let 
them alone till the judgment day. He did not even dis¬ 
cipline Judas. Yet he knew what was in his heart. 
Should the other disciples have left Jesus because Judas 
was a traitor? Were they to blame for Judas? They 
did not tell Jesus that they would leave if He did not put 
Judas out. Were they partakers of Judas’ sin in any 
sense? Are clean children responsible for wayward 
parents or vice versa? 

It is not necessary to enumerate, but those who have 





MODERN THESES 


313 


widely traveled and closely observed, know of revolting 
conditions in all church organizations, which hinder the 
extension of Christ’s kingdom. 

It is customary for stagnant, dead, powerless, 
smaller churches to justify their own lack of power, by 
attributing the success of others outside of their fold, 
to a popular and spurious type of Evangelism. We won¬ 
der how the soul can contract to such a degree that it 
readily believes that God has only really wton, of all the 
sixteen hundred million people of the Universe, the 
twenty to fifty thousand of their fold, and that He con¬ 
fines His love and operations of grace, exclusively to 
them! Nay, beloved, if we are only humble and teach¬ 
able enough, God will yet un-deceive our heart and open 
our eyes to see in the various churches, many tens of 
thousand who have not bowed their knee to Baal. 

The practice and spirit of excluding all from God’s 
grace who do not come our way, is the method of the 
Infallible Church of Rome! 

Oh, while there is time let us repent and seek the 
Spirit of Christ, without which we are none of His. 
Jesus’ spirit rejoiced in faith and character wherever and 
in whomsoever found! He commended the Centurion 
for having greater faith than any of His own. 

The missionary goes to Africa, not to partake of its 
sin and heathen darkness, but to give light to benighted 
souls. “In the world among whom ye shine as lights.” 

May we not be missionaries to the worldly church, 
darkened by sin, and shine there as lights as consistentlv 
as in heathen darkness? 

Is not light to shine in a dark place? “Come ye out 
and be separate” is very familiar to us; “Take them not 




314 


MODERN THESES 


out of the world but keep them from the evil”, is not so 
familiar. 

Fellowship is conditioned, not on membership in 
any one of the scores of church organizations, holiness or 
otherwise, but on walking in the light. Is it not wrong 
to make change of church relationship the condition? 
Did Jesus ever intimate such teaching? 

All church organizations may say, “We are it.” 
Whom are we to believe? There are numerous smaller 
churches crying “Lo here”, “Lo there”. “We are the 
true way.” Jesus said, “Believe them not.” “I am the 
way.” 

Are we not in danger of erring grievously by 
singling out a few issues, such as secrecy and pride 
(personally we do not approve of either) as though there 
were no other grievous sins? But are there not other 
grave matters? For example, Covetousness is idolatry, 
and the covetous man, so Paul says, has no part in the 
kingdom of Christ and God? 

But I do not want to fellowship secrecy, says the 
radical holiness man. Well, with the same logic, why 
fellowship covetousness? It is as sure to damn the soul 
as secrecy or pride, for it is certain that there are thou¬ 
sands of covetousness, God-robbing holiness professors 
in the various holiness churches and movements. We 
have the facts. 

Jesus said to His disciples. Take them not out of 
the world but keep them from the evil (the evil one— 
the Anti-Christ), could not His power also keep them 
from the evil of the sins in the professing church? 

Some one objects, “Why not, then, join Mormonism, 




MODERN THESES 


315 


Catholicism, Christian Science or the Lodge ?” Nay, 
these are Anti-Christ and un-Christian and un-evan- 
gelical. 

That a man cannot be a Christian and belong to one 
of the various evangelical churches is not only, as proven 
above, contrary to the Scriptures, but it is contrary to the 
example of history also. John Wesley and John Fletcher 
were both members of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
and so remained till their remarkable death-bed scenes. 
This is an honest time. If they are lost for serving God 
in the formal church of England, it will now be mani¬ 
fest in their dying testimonials. “The best of all, God 
is with us”, said Wesley. “Love, love, God’s love,” were 
the saintly Fletcher’s words. Keen’s words (of the M. 
E. Church) were, “How unspeakably precious Jesus has 
been. I have just discovered that this full salvation is 
fuller than I believed.” 

Cookm;an of the same church, kept saying to the 
different loved ones about his bed, “Remember my testi¬ 
mony, I am washed in the blood of the Lamb”, and then 
at last he cried, “I am sweeping thru the gates, washed 
in the blood of the Lamb.” 

Again, running off, miffed at every little opposition, 
simply proves that we have not that love which suffers 
long, is patient and kind and never fails. When the 
opportunity comes to prove that we are letting patience 
have her perfect work, this method, forthwith, lets im¬ 
patience have her imperfect work. 

Again, Jesus’ example is against this position. He 
kept going into the synagogue everywhere—“as His cus¬ 
tom was!” He called the Jewish temple the “Temple of 
God”—“My Father’s House”, and it was. He went into 




316 


MODERN THESES 


it, not to criticise it, but to cleanse and to drive out that 
which perverted it. 

Again, history proves that all great revivalists, as 
Wesley, Fletcher, Finney, Redfield, Caughey, Evan 
Roberts, had their most powerful revivals in the various 
old churches. Again it is suggestive that God has never 
used any of the exclusive churches as leaders of great, 
sweeping revivals. Jesus did not give His church any 
particular name (He did speak of it as His Body—His 
Bride, however). He was particular to stamp men with 
holy character. That is all that will stand the test of 
time and eternity. 

Is it consistent to condemn the worldling to hell for 
the insurance he carries in his Lodge, and then insure 
our lives in old-line Companies? Is it consistent to 
parade the faults of churches and colleges and cover up 
the sins in our own? 

Why not publish them also to the world? Would 
that not be fair? Personally, we want neither. 

A final objection is that they backslide in the cold, 
formal churches. The same can be said of the smaller 
churches. At least three-fourths of the seekers in re¬ 
vivals are “repeaters.” 






318 


MODERN THESES 


“Each one is attached to his own sect and despises all 
others. The unity and charity of Christ are at an end” 

“Let party names no more 

The Christian World o'er spread; 

Gentile and Jezv, and bond and free, 

Are one in Christ the Head.” 

“The genuine spirit of piety, in every time and place, 
tends to promote union in heart and brotherly kindness.” 

“Ye different sects, who all declare, 

Lo! here is Christ, or Christ is there! 

Your stronger proofs divinely give, 

And show us where the Christians live! 

Your claims, alas! ye cannot prove, 

Ye want the genuine mark of love.” 

•j 

The call is not to organized unity; but to the recognition 
of that perfect heart unity provided in Christ for all; fellow¬ 
ship in Christ being the strongest unifying bond. The be¬ 
lievers are members one of another; and “members of His 
flesh and of His bones/' oh, that we might realize more, 
experimentally, the unity which is ours judicially. 




MODERN THESES 


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The Sin of Disunity 

CHAPTER XXIV 
SCRIPTURAL UNITY 

The prophet, Isaiah, gives a twofold picture of 
unity; in its true and its false aspect: 

“Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be 
broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries; 
gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces: gird 
yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take coun¬ 
sel together, and it shall come to naught, speak the word 
and it shall not stand :****For the Lord spake thus to 
me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should 
not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not a 
confederacy, to all them whom this people shall say a 
confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. 
Sanctify the Lord of Hosts Himself; and let Him be 
your fear, and let Him be your dread.” Isaiah 8:9-13. 

The great burden, pressing the Saviour’s heart, in 
the shadow of the cross, was, the unity of all His fol¬ 
lowers, down through time till the consummation of the 
age; hear His great intercessory prayer for them: 

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy Word is 
truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have 
I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes T 
sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified 
through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but 
for them also which shall believe on me through their 
word. That they may ALL be one; as thou, Father, art 
in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: 




320 


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that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And 
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; 
that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; 
and that the world may know that thou hast sent me 
and has loved them, as thou hast loved me.” John, 
17:17-23. 

TRUE UNITY DISTASTEFUL TO THE 
SECTARIANIST 

“And one of them named Caiaphas, being the high 
priest that same year, said unto them, ‘Ye know nothing 
at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one 
man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish 
not’ And this spake he not of himself: but being high 
priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for 
that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also 
He should gather together in one the children of God 
that were scattered abroad. ,, John 11:49-52. 

It is suggestive that from the utterance of this 
prophecy of the essential unity of all God’s children, Jew 
and Gentile, black and white, rich and poor, foreign or 
native, Samaritan and Hebrew, high and low cast, ple¬ 
beian and prince, serf and master, and all the other sheep 
not of the fold of Israel, for whom the Master’s heart 
yearned, “Then from that day forth they took counsel 
together for to put Him to death.” In their narrow parti¬ 
san pride, the Jews had forgotten the words of Isaiah, 
their prophet, which, while recognizing them as chosen 
people, did not limit Jehovah’s affection to them. “In 
that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with 




MODERN THESES 


321 


Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom 
the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt 
my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and 
Israel mine inheritance.” Isaiah 20:24-25. Thank God 
the measure of God’s love is broader than the measure of 
man’s mind! Larger than can be contained in any sec¬ 
tarian, or non-sectarian mould! He cannot be syndi¬ 
cated ! He is the light of the world and not merely the 
light of any one denomination! 

Each new sect had it origin either in the conviction 
from the Lord, or in the egotism of its leaders, that it 
was better capacitated to shepherd the Lord’s flock than 
others. The latter spirit is that “I am holier than thou,” 
self-righteousness so repugnant to God, that righteous¬ 
ness which says: “Stand by thyself, come not near to 
me; for I am holier than thou.” The self-righteous are 
abhorred by God—“a smoke in my nose, a fire that 
burneth all day.” This was the sin of the fallen angels! 
Self-exaltation! But it is hard to be fair with our¬ 
selves and admit that we have this spirit when it hides 
under zeal for the pure glory of God, as we think, which 
is, however, often the god of self. Paul described such 
leaders as “grievous wolves taking away disciples after 
themselves.” True unity is distasteful to the sectar- 
ianist because he does not want it in Christ—his vision 
is of a unity which brings everybody into his sect. 

WORLD’S VALUE OF UNITY 

Go to the world thou blind ecclessiastic, and learn 
wisdom. General Pershing, on the departure of Gen¬ 
eralissimo Foch from America, said, “I shall always be 




322 


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glad (rejoice) that my voice was raised for unity under 
the great commander who led the combined forces to 
victory.” Pershing saw that one of the deadliest defects 
of the Allies was the diversified and ununified nature of 
their fighting—from the outset he stood for unity of 
command. General Pershing was doubtless a great sol¬ 
dier, but he gladly effaced himself to defeat the terrible 
foe. No matter who gets the honor, so the foe is 
crushed. Does not God speak to His torn church by this 
man of the army? Shall not the Lord’s lesser generals 
efface themselves and plead for unity under the great 
Generalissimo of the Lord’s armies, Jesus Christ? 

The children of the world are wiser in their gener¬ 
ation than the children of light. They highly value the 
principle of unity and cooperation. But for it, there 
would be no great railroads stretching from ocean to 
ocean; or mighty vessels plowing the deep. Get to¬ 
gether Conferences are the order of the day. Trusts, 
mergers, syndicates, amalgamations, corporations, com¬ 
bines, world conferences, international tribunals are 
words ever before us. Hardly a group of men congre¬ 
gate but they talk of getting together; “We must get 
together”: “We must stand together.” A farmer boy 
told us that if the farmers would really organize and 
stand together in withholding the products of their 
farms from the markets, they would all soon be million¬ 
aires ; that they would starve the populace while doing 
it, was incidental. Twenty men of Japan, recently tour¬ 
ing America, own over fifty percent of Japan’s wealth. 
Organization is the word rife everywhere. In college* 
groups from the different states band together; there are 
debating societies, alumni associations, etc. In business 





MODERN THESES 


323 


financial groups stand together; a very small percent of 
the population owning a very large percent of the total 
wealth of our country. Manufacturing groups, labor 
organizations, political groups, lodge organizations ga¬ 
lore, social groups, all are preaching to the church, the 
value of cooperation. 

THE SIN OF DISUNITY 

A prominent New York Protestant Episcopal bishop 
recently published the statement, in the Literary Digest, 
that “our divisions are sin”, writing of what would be 
termed nominal Christianity as represented by the 
various evangelical churches. Our good brother writes 
a truly startling word! More so because of the unex¬ 
pected source! 

A greater than he (Paul) wrote that Christians are 
called to the exalted fellowship of God’s Son. From 
much modern emphasis one would get the idea he was 
called to the fellowship of some one of the diversified 
sects of whom it can no longer be said, “Look how these 
Christians love one another,” but, “see how they separ ¬ 
ate from each other! see how suspicious they are of each 
other! see how fearfully jealous they are lest any of 
their (often proselyted flock) go to the other fold!” 
Paul continues, because of our calling to the pure fel¬ 
lowship with God’s Son, “Now I beseech you brethren, 
by the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak 
the same thing, and there be no divisions among you; 
but that ye be “perfectly joined together” in the “same 
mind” and in the “same judgment.” For it hath been 
declared unto me of you, my brethren********that there 





324 


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are contentions among you... Now this I say, that every 
one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apolos; and I 
of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul 
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of 
Paul? (a fine sarcasm; if they were, they were not bap¬ 
tized at all: the original command being to be baptized 
in the Name of Christ). I Cor., 10:13. “For ye are yet 
carnal: for whereas there is among you “envying”, and 
“strife,” and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as 
men?” It is possible to have carnality while talking 
most loudly about its destruction. The divisive, sec¬ 
tarian spirit, is the ear-mark of carnality! It was in con¬ 
nection with the sin and carnality of disunion that Paul 
wrote his solemn word of warning about a man’s work 
being burned up and himself saved as by fire because he 
built on some other foundation than Christ. Those who 
cause division serve not the Lord Christ but their own 
selves! 

It is no light thing, wrote John Wesley, “to make a 
rent in the body of Christ and separate from those with 
whom we were before united.” Schism, in the professed 
body of Christ, everywhere, is the great hindrance to 
the progress of the kingdom; there needs to be convic¬ 
tion for the sin of it; and deep repentance for it; and 
its utter abandonment. Whitfield, Wesley, and Edwards, 
a weighty triumvirate, are all on record as despairing of 
any extensive revival unless different sects should forget 
their non-essential differences and rally around the name 
of Christ for the salvation, and edification, of souls, in 
Christ; If, during the war, the churches united their 
services to save coals, ought they not unite to save souls? 
Spiritual union among the evangelical denominations 




MODERN THESES 


325 


and united cooperation in promoting the Lord’s work is 
the quickest way to the revival so much needed and the 
sure cure for the animosity and bigotry too prevalent 
among us under the specious name of zeal for truth; or 
my church; or our church; indeed we have allowed our 
Protestantism with its mechanical activities, often, to 
crowd Christ off the programme. On the street car re¬ 
cently I overheard the conversation of two ministers 
who were returning from a church convention; they 
repeated, in the course of their conversation, the word 
church ! church! church ! church ! church !; our church; 
my church; the church; your church until our heart 
sickened. There are fifteen thousand references to 
Christ and God in the Bible and how seldom we speak 
of Him. 

We were once supplying as pastor, in a superior- 
sanctity-congregation. The building in which it wor¬ 
shipped was stolen by a vote in which two-thirds, bv 
sheer force of numbers voted that the one-third minor¬ 
ity had no rights in the property in which they had put 
their money; when the big two- thirds juggernaut rode 
over them, the golden rule of Christ and the equity of 
the Bible was annulled. The deal was duly consum¬ 
mated and the name changed and the people introduced 
into a forward (?) step with God. When we were informed 
of the high-handed manner in which the building was 
gotten, it troubled the conscience; not being able to see 
that it was right to steal, even in the name of the Lord; 
or that it was any more right to steal lumber to build a 
house than to steal sheep to make a flock for the Lord; 
or that one could be a partaker of other men’s sins under 
the specious pretense of the Lord’s glory. It troubled 




326 


MODERN THESES 


us until it got into our dreams. One night we dreamed 
that we saw a tug of war. The Saviour’s heart was the 
center of it; two companies were at the ends of the rope, 
mostly women on their side, and they were actually 
tearing the Saviour’s heart in twain. This was truly 
startling! We are not guided by dreams. But it was 
such a perfect picture of our thought of the matter that 
our convictions were deepened that it was no longer 
right for us to shepherd a flock which had stolen their 
Corral; so we handed in our resignation. The dream 
was true; the Saviour’s heart was greatly torn in that 
community by the division; the other party going to 
another part of the small city and starting a new work; 
the world looked on in amazement at those who preached 
a grace which makes one, and wondered; and steered 
clear of both little charmed circles. But there is a blessed 
sequel. In that same city was a great church which 
should have given the others the pure doctrines of God’s 
Word about the holy life; but it failed. Because the 
others had erroneously expounded and poorly demon¬ 
strated the word of God, it chose the cowardly course of 
silence. In the course of time an evangelist arrived on 
the scene, impartially sized up the situation, and decided 
on a course of action. There was blame at every inter¬ 
section of the triangle. Finding fault with none, seek¬ 
ing to help all, he got a big touring car and loaded it up 
with the leading spirits of each party and took them for 
a joy ride, ostensibly, but really, to have a heart to heart 
talk over the situation and its hindrance to the work of 
God. He first confessed, “we, of the big church have 
been too cautious and conservative and we have not 
done our duty. Forgive us, we will do better.” He then 




MODERN THESES 


327 


kindly, but firmly asked the others if they did not think 
that they had been too radical? “And will you not sur¬ 
render some of your radicalness to us to help tone up our 
conservativeness and take some of our conservativeness 
to help modify your extreme radicalness ?” It was 
agreed and sealed by prayer and confirmed by the Lord 
in sending them a mighty revival. 

UNITY IN CHRIST NOT EFFECTED BY 
ORGANIZATION 

During the World War, when fuel economy was 
necessary to help win it, as it was said, a strong public 
sentiment in the East demanded that the churches bury 
their non-essential differences and worship together to 
save coal; prominent business men are now pointing out 
the needless waste, in duplicating the operating expenses 
of so many little struggling sects; all claiming to believe 
the same Bible, to love the same Lord, and to worship 
the same God and to be bound for the same heavenly 
home; we understand that the objective of these 
demands was for a mere outward, external or organic 
unity, effected largely for the economy or good business 
of it. The church will do w;ell, and especially those 
claiming the Highest New Testament Experience and 
Life, will do well to note the strength of this argu¬ 
ment, if they would have power with thinking men. The 
world has a right to ask us to deliver! to put up or shut 
up! 

But if all the churches extant should get together 
and agree on a universal creed; a joint hymnal; unity in 
form of worship; the same form of government and dis- 





328 


MODERN THESES 


cipline; a unified missionary programme and the same 
curriculum in all their educational institutions,— all, to¬ 
gether, would not constitute the union for which Jesus 
prayed in the shadow of the cross. It is impossible to 
make men good by law; or to make men sober by legis¬ 
lation; or to change them by reformation; (as world 
prohibition by 1925) ; or to make them spiritual by a 
code of church laws. Outside of “oneness” in Christ 
there is no worthwhile unity. True disciples are all one 
in Christ Jesus! not because they have agreed to be¬ 
lieve a series of doctrinal statements; such unity has 
but the strength of a rope of sand! They are one because 
of a common life in their Lord. “One is your Master, 
even Christ, and all ye, (in Him) are brethren.” True 
unity comes not by organization but by baptism—“For 
by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether 
we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; 
and have been all made to drink into (R. V. of) one 
Spirit.” Corinthians 12:13. This oneness is further 
likened unto the close sympathetic union of the body 
and its members; if one member suffers all the members 
suffer with it: so it is in the true church of Christ. 

The attainment of the perfect man unto the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ is only reached 
in the unity of the faith; the fullest comfort and the full¬ 
est assurance are likewise linked with all the children 
of God being knit together in love; all lowliness and 
longsuffering forbearance of each other in love, shine 
most clearly when the church directs effort to unity: 
“Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
of peace.” Because, however much we seek to divide the 
church into endless factions, “There is one body, and one 




MODERN THESES 


329 


Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 
one Lord; one faith; one baptism; one God and Father 
of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all.’’ 
Ephesians, 4:2-6. The power of unity, too, is signifi¬ 
cantly suggested in that the unprecedented effects of 
Pentecost came on and through a perfectly unified com¬ 
pany who were all of one accord and in one place, and 
most startling they were of one accord before the Spirit 
came. The pleasantness of unity also is described to¬ 
gether with its goodness, preciousness and blessedness 
here, and eternal life beyond: “Behold, how good and 
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! 
It is like the precious ointment upon the head ;******** 
as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended 
upon the mountains of Zion: for there (when together 
in unity) the Lord commanded the blessing, (it is the 
place of blessing) even life for evermore.” Psalm, 133. 
The unity of His people, is the ground for the restora¬ 
tion of the faith of the Gospel which shall shake to the 
foundation the kingdom of Satan: “Stand fast in one 
spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of 
the Gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries”. 
Philippians, 1:27-28. Instead of unitedly contending for 
the faith of the Gospel we have divisively contended for 
the shibboleth of our party! There is an intimation, in 
the last reference, that Satan's strength is so great that 
it will require the combined faith of God’s people, to 
defeat Him. But what do we behold in the warfare 
against Satan? instead of a united front, like the English, 
French, Belgians and Italians, in the early days of the 
war, before the unification of command of all the Allied 
Armies under Foch, each pecked away on his sector, 




330 


MODERN THESES 


sometimes making a dent in the enemies’ lines, but not 
able to hold the gain for lack of reinforcements, which 
the enemy was quick to note, were repulsed with terrible 
losses. And yet again and again they were ordered for¬ 
ward, Gibbs tells, with the promise of reinforcements 
which did not come! What fearful losses we have sus¬ 
tained ! What victories might have been ours! If each 
of the guilty parties, instead of selfishly and hopelessly, 
well nigh, pecking away on His little sector of the 
enemy’s line, had buried his ambition for distinction as 
a leader, like Pershing, and all had clamored for unifi¬ 
cation and the pooling of the resources of all under 
Generalissimo Jesus and unitedly charged the enemy’s 
line! How' his walls would have fallen! How his 
strongholds would have been compelled to give way! 

If the Allies had not seen the necessity of the cen¬ 
tralized command; of the pooling of their resources, 
forces and supplies, there would doubtless be world- 
war-fighting yet. The remarkable achievement of the 
Central Powers, of virtually keeping foreign soldiers off 
of their territory, especially the German sector, was due 
to the unitizing effect of the iron ring of foes about them. 
In Germany, they said, “now henceforth we bury our 
differences; we are no longer divided into different fac¬ 
tions ; . we are no more Centrists, Liberals, Royalists. 
Catholics, Laborists or Socialists; we are Germans; as 
one man we unitedly face the common foe.” Would God 
that the terrific onslaughts which the foe of God, man 
and the Church, is now making at the end of the age, 
would likewise electrify the diversified parties of the 
Church, quickening them into real united resistance in 
the Name of Christ! Well the Adversary knows that 




MODERN THESES 


331 


in unity there is strength! He has used his greatest 
wisdom in scattering the power of the holy people. 

Let me repeat the words of our Episcopal brother: 
“Our divisions are sin.” If this is so of what we term 
nominal Christianity, how much more it is so when 
there is division of spirit with those claiming perfect 
love, sanctification, the indwelling Christ, or victory? 
Well, we know that there may be unity in a diversity of 
church names, forms of church government and ritual 
or the form of worship, and that God has often providen¬ 
tially overruled this diversity to the salvation of some 
souls who might not otherwise have been reached. We 
are pleading that we shall not fire our guns into each 
other’s camps but steadily, and wherever possible, unit¬ 
edly train our guns on the enemy’s stronghold. If what 
we term nominally spiritual churches unite for a type of 
union revival effort which frequently includes elements 
which we do not approve (and yet our hearts are large 
enough to rejoice in all the pure good which results) ; 
and if business men, as a matter of good business adver¬ 
tisement, where there is not full cooperation of the pas¬ 
tors and churches, will get behind and boost a popular 
sensational type of hippodrome revival campaign, with 
more or less mixed motives, how much more should the 
people of God claiming the most exalted life in Christ, 
under various terminology, get together at least once 
annually, for an unselfish campaign on full salvation 
lines! We embrace unity in theory and renounce it in 
practice. It is evident that the Spirit of God is calling 
for self-effacement deeper than we have known, all 
around, and for the recognition that the larger glory of 
Christ’s kingdom far transcends, in importance, the sue- 




332 


MODERN THESES 


cess of any one branch of it. Who will volunteer to be 
swallowed? There is little use to.talk of a doctrinal 
union which is belied by numerous divisions and increas¬ 
ing distance in fellowship; at present our unity is a 
mirage denied by practice in instances too numerous to 
mention. There is little use to say such instances are 
not representative for they are characteristic of condi¬ 
tions everywhere. There is as much hope of unity among 
the denominations at large as among the churches and 
movements claiming the highest life. 

Christ did not pray for spasmodic nor temporary 
unity but for real and actual unity; not for mere imprac¬ 
tical and unreal unification; nor for the external and 
seeming but that type which conforms to the test. His 
prayer was for heart unity of the Spirit, whose praise is 
of God more than man; his intercession was not for that 
type of accordness which is found primarily nor second¬ 
arily or inherently in any Church movement but only in 
the Father and in the Son, “That they may be one in us/’ 
Organic Unity, Head and Body united! 

It is not contingent on identification with a certain 
company or joining an elect circle, although its subjects 
are found often in the various evangelical organizations 
and sometimes without them; many even in the pre- 
Reformation church knew its blessedness: its great con¬ 
dition is to walk like Some One: “If we walk in the 
light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with 
another”; fellowship with God's Son and unison with 
all in that fellowship. 

Quoting a Methodist bishop: “It is not a mere out¬ 
ward, or dead unity—this is not the kind we stand most 
in need of, but of the heart—Pentecostal union in Christ 




MODERN THESES 


333 


—the true union of fellowship in Him—a unity of life/' 
This agreement does not have a creedal basis, but a 
Personal basis—a Christo-centric basis, “Ye are all one 
in Christ Jesus.” In its experience and fellowship, we 
ask not so much, “Where men belong,” as, “to Whom do 
they belong?” In it there is nothing higher than to be 
a Christian—a follower of Christ. In its enjoyment, with 
Wesley, “We desire a league offensive and defensive 
with every other soldier of Jesus Christ.” We are, as 
David wrote, companions of all them who keep His pre¬ 
cepts; irrespective of his nationality or denomination- 
ality, as another eminent servant of God wrote, “We are 
not consciously separated from any one who loves Jesus 
Christ, in sincerity.” As individuals we are not respon¬ 
sible for the endless religious parties of our day, we are 
only responsible not to have the divisive spirit in our 
own hearts; and not to refuse fellowship with any one 
whose views are consistent with a holy life. True one¬ 
ness in Christ does not exclude from its fellowship the 
humblest believer in Christ. 

POSITIVELY 

Studying the prayer of Christ for the unity of His 
disciples there is the fact of intercession with the objec¬ 
tive of their oneness through all time; that it is a con¬ 
comitant of true sanctification, or Bible sanctification. 
We say Bible sanctification because there is extant much 
profession of sanctification and Pentecost which co¬ 
exists with a jealous and selfish antagonism of other 
organizations which stand for the same truths, some¬ 
times with varied Scriptural terminology. It was a sane- 




MODERN THESES 


334 


tification wihich was to be accomplished through the in¬ 
strumentality of the truth: “Sanctify them through thy 
truth;” giving fitness for life service and preceding the 
commission to it; “As thou hast sent me into the world, 
even so have I also sent them into the world.” The un¬ 
selfish type of it is pointed out: “For their sakes I sanc¬ 
tify myself; that they also may be sanctified”—with thi3 
same kind that I have for the sake of others. The uni¬ 
versal scope of it is mentioned: “Neither pray I for these 
alone, but for them also which shall believe on me 
through their word”; it is the basis of faith in His mis¬ 
sion : “That they all may be one in us; as thou Father 
art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: 
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” 
He further makes the oneness of His disciples the basis 
for the world’s knowledge or recognition of His Messia- 
ship “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou 
hast sent me.” The only perfection possible in this 
life, a result of Christ’s indwelling the individual and 
Church is mentioned: “I in them and thou in me: (and 
its effect) that they may be made perfect in one.” It is 
in connection with this perfection of oneness of His 
Church that the promised glory is given: “And the glory 
which thou hast given me I have given them.” This 
unity is the same in kind if not in degree that Christ 
had with the Father; “that they may be one as we are 
one.” 

Heedlessness of this unity is sin because it violates 
the positive command to endeavour to keep the unity of 
the Spirit and forfeits all the other invaluable results 
and power promised the church; keeping us from the 





MODERN THESES 


335 


larger glory of full Pentecostal power: some of us are 
so easily satisfied with Pentecost on individuals and 
little groups but we know little of the all but over¬ 
whelming power the Spirit could manifest through a 
larger company of diversified and yet united believers. 
It is sin because it was in connection with the sending 
of the Spirit at Pentecost as Unifier and Sanctifier that 
Jesus told the disciples that the world would experience 
conviction for sin: “And when He the Spirit of truth 
is come to you (disciples)—He will reprove the world 
of sin.” John 16:8. The Revised Version says, “He 
will convict the world of sin.” Whatever hinders the 
world’s faith, and knowledge of Christ; whatever violates 
a positive command and thereby misses its positive and 
powerful rewards; and whatever hinders the full con¬ 
viction of the world of sin (which comes in any given 
corrfmunity in proportion to the heart unity of all the 
people of God) ; whatever in the church stumbles and 
scandalizes the world; whatever hinders the onward 
march of God’s kingdom, cannot be designated by any 
other word short of the one the good bishop uses—“Sin”! 
Shall not God speak in power to us by this man outside 
our select, charmed circle? 

When Modern Churches or Movements, adroitly or 
subtlely intervene themselves between the soul and God 
they should suffer the same repudiation the Ancient 
Hierarchy received from the Reformers of the Sixteenth 
Century. As Lindsey suggests: “The Reformers taught 
that God gave the believer who received Christ the 
power to throw himself directly on God* The Roman 
Church taught that the mediation of a priest was essen¬ 
tial—that he could create, nourish and perfect the Super- 




336 


MODERN THESES 


natural life through the sacraments. The priesthood en¬ 
slaved Europe and made Christian liberty an impossible 
thing. The priesthood barred the way to God or opened 
it. The Church, w,hich should have shown the way to 
God, blocked it. 

“If a man felt sorrow for sin, or if he wished com¬ 
forting words of pardon; or if he wanted God’s grace 
he must not go to God for it but to the church and priest 
who taught that man was not born from heaven as Jesus 
said but in baptism; he was to come to full age not in 
Christ Jesus but in confirmation; his marriage must be 
cleansed from lust in the sacrament of matrimony rather 
than in the blood of Christ; penance brought back his 
spiritual life slain by deadly sin rather than simply 
returning to the Lord; and death-bed grace was imparted 
in extreme unction rather than in the promise of God 
to be with us in the valley of the shadow of death. 

“These ceremonies were not signs and promises 
of the free grace of God********they were jealously 
guarded doors from out of which grudgingly, and com¬ 
monly not without fees, the priests dispensed the free 
grace of God. 

“Between the God who had revealed Himself 
directly to man, the Mediaeval theologian had placed 
what he called the Church, but what really was the 
opinions of accredited theologians confirmed by deci¬ 
sions of Councils or Popes.” The analogy in present 
conditions is true to former error either when it is in¬ 
sinuated that salvation inheres in certain Protestant 
church membership or if others of superior piety claim 
it can not be genuinely gotten outside of themselves. 
What is the difference in the assumption that grace 




MODERN THESES 


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can only flow through the Roman Church, or the spirit 
so prevalent today that we will not recognize you or 
give you the benefits of the free Gospel unless you join 
us altogether; that excludes you from any official work 
among us and our work unless you leave altogether the 
other church; that respects persons and regards more 
highly those who obey than those who are not led of 
God to transfer; that binds the bands of sect-owner¬ 
ship as tightly on the soul while offering perfect free¬ 
dom as the Catholics ever did; that specifies by unwrit¬ 
ten but well understood laws that excommunication 
will be your fate if you worship elsewhere and hence¬ 
forth you shall be as one dead to them because their 
love was selfish and not Christian, which never fails. 
This spirit which insists that our young men who have 
gone to other schools than our own shall receive the 
finishing touches of their education in our institutions 
or they shall not be received into our Conferences is 
akin to the old one from which we have broken for 
liberty and looks as though we were trying to establish 
a new Hierarchy of our own, is a spirit which cares 
more for the things of its own than the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ, and has a greater zeal to stamp our denomina¬ 
tional peculiarites on our young men than the Spirit of 
Christ. Forcing young men to a so-called recognized 
school for their final work so as to escape the limita¬ 
tions of the non-senate-school. Is this not a subtle 
claim of superiority over others—a veiled claim to, of, 
if not infallibility—better ability than others? A spirit 
which demands that young men coming into confer¬ 
ences, synods, presbyteries, and assemblies, shall im¬ 
plicitly obey the older men *even if they must violate 




338 


MODERN THESES 


conscience, stiflle convictions, and grieve the Holy 
Spirit to do it. 

In consideration of the numerous “together” pas¬ 
sages in the New Testament-Striving together, framed 
together, joined together, knit ^together, builded to¬ 
gether, live together, gathering together, followers to¬ 
gether, quickened together, heirs together, laborers 
together, workers together, dwell together, sitting to¬ 
gether, caught up together, ought we not to get together? 
“For there shall be One Shepherd and one fold.” Where? 
Neither here nor there! Not in your church or in mine, 
but in His Name and Spirit; in love, and sympathy, and 
cooperation, wherever possible, and in appreciation of 
and prayer for all who follow Him, though not with us. 





MODERN THESES 


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Victory Chapter 


CHAPTER XXV 


TEXT:—I Corinthians 15:57 


But thanks 
be to God 
which giveth 


(Praise for Victory) 
(Source of Victory) 


(Victory a gift— 


us 

the Victory 


present tense) 
(Victory personal) 
(Victory definite) 


thru our Lord Jesus Christ (Victory thru a Person) 

In the world God has given us great variety. The 
naturalist will tell us that there are no two trees alike; 
nor any two leaves or blades of grass or flowers exactly 
alike. The anthropologist will tell us that there are no 
two human beings alike in all particulars, not even twins. 
The psychologist will tell us men’s minds differ. There 
is no monotony of sameness in the physical universe. 
We have mountain and hill and bluff and prairie, preci¬ 
pice, ravine, valley, dell, mesa, mound, bog, gulch and 
knoll and hillock and plain. We have rills and streams 
and rivulets and springs, rivers and seas and oceans. 
One photographer has twenty-six different shaped snow¬ 
flakes ! Over the physical world roam different kinds of 
animals, wild and domestic. In earth as well are hidden 
a great selection of minerals, iron, clay, brass, tin, zinc, 
copper, coal, silver, gold and diamonds. There is almost 
endless variety of climate and fruit and crop, in diver¬ 
sified zones. In the heavens are seen the same benevo¬ 
lent design to relieve from monotony—Planets, sun, 




340 


MODERN THESES 


moon and stars, fixed and wandering. The fowls that 
fly in the heavens are also of great variety as well as the 
domestic fowls. The innumerable fishes of the sea are 
of different variety. Thus we find in ethnology, orni¬ 
thology, psychology, geology, astrology, astronomy, 
geography and every realm known to man great variety. 

As men vary in face and form and size, they like¬ 
wise vary in intellect, talent and temperament. “To 
every man his work”, is in the Divine order in the arts 
as well as grace; in the spiritual realm of supernatural 
gifts the same diversity is seen. “All have not the same 
gifts.” Some prophesy; some teach; some have gifts 
of government; some pastors; some evangelists. In 
the heavenly abode we find angels, Archangels, Cheru- 
him, Seraphim. 

Christ in life and service shows great freedom and 
illustrates variety of mode, manner and method. He 
knelt and prayed; anon, He told the disciples “When 
ye stand praying if ye have aught against any forgive.’’ 
The chief thing in prayer was not the set form or man¬ 
ner of it but the forgiving spirit. He was hard on the 
staid, stereotyped and formal. As one has said He 
broke up every funeral procession He ever met and He 
relieved from monotony or sameness in the method or 
manner of doing it. He called the young man to come 
to life from off the bier and Lazarus to come out of the 
tomb, the one dead a short while and the other so long 
his body was decaying; the young maid He called back 
to life while lying on the bed. To her of tender years 
He speaks softly and gently “talitha cuma.” Lazarus 
He calls forth with a loud stentorian voice resonant 
with power, command and authority. 




MODERN THESES 


341 


He works not by cut and dried method. He did 
not always do things alike. 

Dining with the Pharisee, who was a stickler for 
traditional custom and etiquette, He refused the cus¬ 
tomary ablution of the hands before eating, to the great 
disgust of his host. But only by this freedom could He 
belittle the value of traditional and outward cleansing 
and thereby teach the real defilement, the inner pollu¬ 
tion is not from unwashen hands but from uncleansed 
hearts. 

He called Zaccheus from up the tree to come down 
and Nathaniel from under the tree to come out and fol¬ 
low Him: Matthew from the receipt of custom and the 
fisherman from the sea. 

He healed in a great variety of ways, saying a 
word, commanding to go wash in a certain pool, or 
again to go down the pathway of obedience to His word 
to find healing through obedience to His word as they 
went. Others He would anoint with clay made from 
spittle or He would lay hands on the sick or touch deaf 
ears with His fingers, or simply speak the opening 
words, Ephphatha. Again He would tell a fond loved 
one, if he would believe His word and go in obedience 
to it his son would live. 

In the realm of the soul’s salvation the description 
of its various stages not one but many synonymous 
terms are used. For awakening there is not one uniform 
term but conviction, alarm, reproof, awakening. Re¬ 
generation is not described by one monotonous term. 
We find conversion, justification, forgiveness, pardon, 
sanctification (initial or partial), the birth of the Spirit, 
new born creatures, washing of regeneration, saved, 




342 


MODERN THESES 


born again, born from above, born of God, sons of God, 
a new creature in Christ Jesus, children of the light, 
turned from darkness to light. 

In the Word of God we find great variety of terms 
descriptive of the sanctified victorious life. No one need 
be in bondage to any one Scriptural designation of the 
holy life. How senseless it is for those who receive vic¬ 
tory under the termlology used by A. B. Earle, “The 
Rest of Faith” to refuse fellowship to those who have 
been led into the light through the Bible term of victory. 
Dr. C. G. Trumbull in his recent book, “What is The 
Gospel of Christs”, said “The Victorious Life,” was an¬ 
other way of describing “The Sanctified Life.” Now 
since he has liberty to use the term so dear to many let 
us be equally free to use the term, “The Victorious 
Life,” he has popularized, not because it is his, but be¬ 
cause it is Scriptural! 

A friend who read his series of personal testimonies 
to “The Victorious Life”, said they would have been all 
right if the term sanctification had been used instead of 
Victory. Now that is utter nonsense and unwarranted 
narrowness (of which we have been senselessly guilty). 
Sanctification is not found in the wprd sanctification but 
in Christ, the mighty Sanctifier. No more is victory 
found in the word victory but in Christ the mighty Vic¬ 
tor. The terms are but vehicles through which God 
points out to us the unsearchable riches we have in 
Christ. In Christ is Life. “He that hath the Son hath 
life and he that hath not the Son hath not life,” though 
he may have as he supposes, the only correct terms des¬ 
criptive of Life. 

We grant the word sanctification has been unduly 




MODERN THESES 


343 


avoided by some. Their justification is that it is per¬ 
verted in its meaning and not demonstrated by its de¬ 
votees. All the more reason those of ability should 
teach and exemplify its content. That the term sancti¬ 
fication and its derivatives and synonyms occur far more 
frequently in the Word of God than “Victory” is but the 
statement of truth. We can see how that God who never 
hesitates to lay aside the man, men, movement or move¬ 
ments, church or churches, who fail longer to serve His 
purpose, might, because of its perversion, change front 
and pour out His Spirit on some other Scriptural term 
which He is now mightily doing in many quarters but 
we cannot see how anyone can be ashamed of any God- 
inspired term and be well pleasing to Him or why He 
who is said to be the Sanctifier of them; who are truly 
sanctified should not honor this His own term when it 
is reasonably presented. This we also know He does. 
But why there should be a division between those who 
have essentially the same life in Him received under dif¬ 
ferent termology is not clear to us. Prejudice against 
sanctification is inconsistent with victory as victory in¬ 
cludes freedom from prejudice. Likewise prejudice 
against victory is inconsistent with sanctification as in 
sanctification there is no wilful avoidance of any term 
found in the Word of God. “Whosoever shall be 
ashamed of Me and of My Words of him shall the Son 
of Man be ashamed”. Sanctification is peculiarly, 
emphatically, His word. Studied avoidance of it is in¬ 
consistent with perfect victory. Perfect victory in¬ 
cludes victory over this dififidence. “Every scripture in¬ 
spired of God is profitable” and as all Scripture is in¬ 
spired of God therefore both victory and sanctification 




344 


MODERN THESES 


are inspired of God and both are profitable. Prejudice 
against any Bible term is an evidence of the lack of vic¬ 
tory over that prejudice. 

But we started out to mention some of the great 
variety of terms God has given us descriptive of victory: 
“Filled with the Spirit”; “Single Eye”; “Filled with right¬ 
eousness”; “Life more abundantly”; “Glorious free¬ 
dom”; “The renewing of the Holy Ghost”; “The free¬ 
dom which is ours in Christ”; “A good tree bearing good 
fruit”; “Perfection as our Father is perfect”; “Pure in 
heart”; “Heart purified by faith”; “Salt of the earth”; 
“A city set on a hill”; The Golden Rule, “doing unto 
others as we would have them do unto us”; “A home 
built on the Rock”; “Rest unto the soul”; “The rest 
which remains for the people of God”; “Perfect Love”; 
“Freedom in the Son”; “Cleansed from all sin”; 
“Liberty wherewith Christ has set us free”; “Our old 
man crucified with Him”; “The freedom which is ours 
in Christ Jesus”; “The Heart of stone taken away”: 
“As He is so are we in this world”; “Pure as He is 
pure”; “The servant as His Lord”; “Sanctification”; 
“Holiness”; “God’s Son revealed in us”; “Christ in you 
the hope of glory”; “The body of sin destroyed”; etc. 

No one can live the victorious life until Christ be¬ 
comes his victory or the God of peace sanctify him 
wholly. The truly sanctified life is the victorious life. 
No one is fully victorious until Christ becomes his sanc¬ 
tification. I Cor. 1:30. One may be sanctified, however, 
and still need to learn many things about the victorious 
life. Let us not be in bondage but have the liberty to 
use any of the great variety of terms God has given us 




MODERN THESES 


345 


to avoid monotony, and especially those terms God’s 
power peculiarly accompanies. 

THE VICTORY DEFINED 

The term “Victorious Life” is objected to by those 
who greatly emphasize the term referred to on the 
ground that the suppression only on sin is meant by 
this term. Whatever men may mean we are sure when 
Paul write I Corinthians 15 :57—“But thanks be to God 
which giveth us The Victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ,” he did not mean anything less than complete 
Victory over all sin, inward and outward—as we heard 
Mr. Trumbull say, commenting on the verse, “such 
perfect Victory over all sin in an instant, that God Him¬ 
self could add nothing to our freedom from sin”. 

But, briefly, that Paul here means deliverance from 
all sin is seen from a look at the context. Bear in mind 
Paul is praising God for the Victory and then see what 
he mentions we have victory over:— 

Sin 

Death 

Glorification and the being caught up when Jesus 
comes—changed so we shall ever be with the Lord. 
Now only the pure in heart shall see the Lord. So this 
victory involves the preparation or fitness to be caught 
up with the wise Spirit-filled, sanctified virgins who 
watch and are fully ready for His coming. 

Then again that Paul does not mean the mere 
suppression or counteraction of sin and not its destruc¬ 
tion is seen from the fact he uses the definite article to 




346 


MODERN THESES 


describe it. It is definite, emphatic, capital-letter, em¬ 
phasized, outstanding victory. 

Not “a” but “the”—in the Greek, for the victory, 
Capital letters are used for emphasis by Paul, not in¬ 
definite, but definite, of a specific type, not minor but 
transcendent, par excellent victory differentiated from 
partial victory by the demonstrative definite article 
the. Hence it is synonymous with “The Promise of the 
Spirit” of Acts 2:39 and “The” or “That” sanctifica¬ 
tion of Heb. 12:14 “without which no man shall see 
the Lord”. >1 A] 

Again it is complete victory because Paul exhorts, 
therefore, because we have it, we are to be steadfast 
unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord, 
a result not possible with out complete victory. 

Further, the near context command to faithfulness 
in stewardship as God has prospered and not the fixed 
amount of one-tenth like the Mormons and Pharisees 
give to perpetuate their false religious systems, shows 
the extent of the victory. None but the fully victorious 
Christian can be fair and honest and just and Christian 
in stewardship. The Christian in partial victory keeps 
back part of the price. The perfectly victorious Chris¬ 
tian consecrates all and gives as God prospers him if 
that amount be 75%. 

As to the how of obtaining victory there is no 
sameness. We may seek with all our hearts until we 
find or we may as the text suggests, go on the doxologv 
committee and thank God for the victory and receive 
Christ as our Victory as simply and with as little effort 
as we exert to receive a present or gift from a friend 
or loved one. “Now thanks be to God which giveth 




MODERN THESES 


347 


us the victory”. Mourning through, praying through, 
seeking through, may have their place but here, in 
obtaining victory, as well as in the other realms men¬ 
tioned, God gives us variety. He here invites the plan 
of praise only. Try it. He assures us, “Thou meetest 
him that praiseth”. Again “Whoever offers praise 
glorifieth me” and He will show him the salvation of 
God. It is significant before Pentecost came that they 
were continually in the temple praising and blessing 
God in anticipation of His faithfulness to fulfil His good 
word of promise. 

I CORINTHIANS 15:57 

Paul Rader suggests, concerning the secret of vic¬ 
tory in Christ: “It is not suppression nor identification 
nor counter-action, nor imputation (nor impartation, 
though in it we partake of the Divine nature) nor eradi ¬ 
cation (though the indwelling of Christ in His fulness 
eradicates and destroys our old man, the body of sin’) 
but it is habitation,”—“Christ in you the hope of glory.” 
He is right. His term is Scriptural. The New Testa¬ 
ment has much to say about “Christ dwelling (habi- 
tating) in our hearts by faith” and “Christ revealed in 
us” and “Christ formed in us” and the Father and Son 
making their home (habitation) in the heart of the 
obedient disciple. 

The indwelling of the Christ incarnated in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost, is surely identical with 
entire sanctification. His presence settles the sin prob¬ 
lem. They tell us that no two things can occupy the 
same place at the same time. Then Satan cannot 




348 


MODERN THESES 


occupy the heart Christ fully occupies. He cannot 
fellowship Christ; Christ hath no concord with Belial, 
no fellowship with darkness. Christ, the light of the 
world, banishes all darkness from the soul when He 
comes to make His dwelling in the consecrated heart. 
Christ is our sanctification, as well as our righteousness. 
He sanctifies by indwelling as the Holy One. 

The other terms mentioned are theological and not 
Scriptural, though some of them express the content of 
Scriptural terms, e. g. eradication is identical with the 
destruction of the body of sin and is not objectionable. 
But the counter-action of sin merely, by Christ, and noc 
its destruction, is an insult to the extent of the blood of 
the atonement which cleanses from all sin. 

We fear some have the idea of the power of the 
blood of Jesus, as did the little boy whom we asked, 
“If you were to empty all the potatoes out of the barrel, 
how many would be left?” After a little reflection on so 
deep a question, he replied, “Not very many.” God has 
not now promised to save us from our humanity, nor 
our infirmities, but He has said that His Son’s blood 
cleanses from all sin, as God sees sin. That is God’s 
estimate of the value of the shed blood of Jesus, and 
should be ours. Suppression is much the same in mean¬ 
ing as counteraction. Sin is merely held in check. But 
Jesus was revealed to destroy the works of the devil 
and not merely hold them down. We would not imply 
that it is impossible to sin. Victory thru Christ only, 
destroys sin in us and does not eliminate Satan from 
the world, or our power to disobey God, lower our shield 
of faith and let sin in again, as the holy pair in Eden did. 

Imputation is objectionable because the righteous- 





MODERN THESES 


349 


ness of Christ is possessed only by Him, and imputed 
merely, and not imparted, to us, as Peter says thru the 
exceeding great and precious promises. 

But victory is more than terms. It does not in¬ 
here in them, however high-sounding and accurate, but 
in Him. ‘‘He that hath the Son hath life and he that 
hath not the Son (whatever else he may have) hath 
not life.” As far as the mere holding and contention 
for terms without power, is concerned, as a friend per¬ 
tinently puts it, “One had better be a decent suppress¬ 
ion^ and suppress it, than to be a radical eradication- 
ist and let it break out, like it so often does.” We over¬ 
look the fact that we can be as “dead in the light of 
correct religious views” as others are “dead in the dark 
of wrong views.” The Master said that the Pharisees 
were correct teachers in Moses’ seat and “whatsoever 
they bid you observe and do, that do”, but, beware of 
the Pharisees’s fatal omission, “They say (they were 
doctrinally correct) and do (or practice) not.” Their 
teaching was better than their practice. Jesus reversed 
this order. “He began to do and teach.” He lived His 
gospel before He preached it. And He said, “Who¬ 
soever shall do and teach.” He gave the rule by which 
to measure men: “By their fruits ye shall know 
them.” He knew how evil men could speak good 
things and under high-sounding sacred names, hide 
hypocrisy. There are those who hold the eradication 
theory and whose lives are not as good as their theory, 
and there are suppressionists who present a better type 
of life than the eradicationists could conceive possible, 
with that theory. A merchant doing business on the 
city square with the sign of a square on his show win- 





350 


MODERN THESES 


dow, is not, by these symbols of squareness, “on the 
square.” He is only on the square when he is actually 
on the square. So, as the world has many meaningless 
symbols( e. g. Golden Rule Stores), the Church also 
has many symbols which stand for nothing. 

The exhibition of the content incarnate, in living 
men and women, of the terms we contend for, will do 
more to convince men than all our exegesis. The great 
need is victory, complete victory, over all sin, inward and 
outward, however obtained. The soul should not rest 
until Christ, the Mighty Champion, has broken all its 
bondage. fWe have met people who were living the vic¬ 
torious, sanctified life, who had never heard a definite 
sermon on the subject, but who had been guided into all 
truth by the blessed, faithful Holy Spirit. Paul said 
that the Gentiles, in a way seemingly irregular to the 
Jews, had attained to righteousness. “The Gentiles, 
which followed not after righteousness (by works) have 
attained to righteousness, even the righteousness by 
faith.” “But Israel (who knew so much of the letter of 
the law) which followed after the law of righteousness, 
hath not attained (those who knew all about it, missed 
it) to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because 
they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works 
of the law.”—Romans 9:32. 

Paul said to the man who boasted of his circum¬ 
cision and knowledge of the law, that in breaking the 
law he dishonored God and his circumcision became un¬ 
circumcision. But to the man who was in uncircum¬ 
cision and thereby despised by the man who believed in 
circumcision, that if the man in uncircumcision, despite 
his disbelief of the circumcision theory, keep the right- 




MODERN THESES 


351 


eousness of the law, God would count his uncircumcision 
for circum'cision. “And shall not his uncircumcision**** 
if he fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and 
circumcision dost transgress the law?”—Romans 
2:25-27. 

The same line of reasoning might be applied to the 
eradicationist and suppressionist. If the eradicationist, 
who theoretically claims that all sin is destroyed in entire 
sanctification, has great difficulty in keeping the prin¬ 
ciple down and under, after, according to his theory it 
is all removed, his eradication becomes suppression, and 
if his brother suppressionist, whom he believes is in great 
error, lives as should the eradicationist, were all sin 
destroyed, his suppression, if it fulfills the content of 
eradication, becomes eradication and condemns and 
judges his radical brother like the uncircumcised who 
kept the law, judged the circumcised who broke it. The 
world cannot understand many of our theories, but it 
does know fruit “By their fruits, (not theories), ye shall 
know them,” (religious teachers and professors), the 
Lord said. So we conclude that it is a matter of personal 
victory and not whether we train with a certain religious 
brigade or pronounce certain shibboleths, or hold the 
views of certain schools of interpretation and practice. 
We would not, of course, decry sound doctrine. Right 
opinion is a healthy basis for right practice. The rela¬ 
tion of creed to conduct is argued alike by Reason and 
Revelation. The Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he” and the keenest observers of human 
life have been compelled to concede the scientific accur¬ 
acy of that claim. The faith of today will determine 
alike the conduct and character of tomorrow. A false 





352 


MODERN THESES 


theory eventually fruits in foul living. But we have been 
trying to point out that our teaching may remain cor¬ 
rect on the whole, as the Pharisees, while our practice is 
incorrect. Then the holding of correct views with incor¬ 
rect living is hypocrisy; it is “the holding of the truth in 
unrighteousness”.—Romans 1:18. 





MODERN THESES 


353 


The Triumphant Life 

CHAPTER XXVI 

“Now thanks be unto God which always 
causes us to triumph in Christ and maketh mani¬ 
fest the savour of His knowledge by us in every 
place.” II Cor. 2:14. 

Wherever I go, thank God, he makes my 
life a constant pageant of triumph in Christ, 
diffusing the perfume of his knowledge every¬ 
where by me.”—(Moffatt’s translation). 

SOME PARTICULARS 

Among the elements of the triumphant or Victorious 
life Paul had in Christ in the immediate context he men¬ 
tions his victorious itinery: “And maketh manifest the 
savour of His knowledge by us in every place” Troas, 
Macedonia, Corinth, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, he had 
victory everywhere in Christ. Whether the advance agent 
had all the arrangements perfected or had secured the 
cooperation of all the priests or had a guarantee of fifty 
thousand from the leading business men or had secured 
Paul accommodations at the leading hotel, is not men¬ 
tioned. Or whether the time was auspicious for revival 
or whether it was the psychological moment does not 
appear in the text. There is not any mention of a dele¬ 
gation of prominent citizens meeting his train or a brass 
band escorting him out, or arches of welcome to “Our 
Big Chief” erected, (or to “The King of Missions,”)— 
Appellations which only belong to Christ, for sometimes 




354 


MODERN TIHESES 


Paul was received coldly and went out in a shower or 
stones and was left for dead, but God did always accom¬ 
plish his purpose in Paul, and though there was little 
evidence of what the modern mind would call “success”, 
God so anointed Paul, that a lasting impression was 
made on those whom He ordained to eternal life, that in 
every place coexistent with Paul’s bonds and imprison¬ 
ment a vigorous company of believers resulted. 

We may not seem successful but if w*e are faithful 
in our God-appointed itnery, “To all I send thee thou 
shalt go”, in every place there will be worth-while fruit 
—Moffat says, “real fruit.” 

Paul mentions ability to preach a self-effaced type 
of message as another fruit of his victory in Christ. “For 
we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord”. 
“Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Tes¬ 
tament, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter 
killeth but the Spirit giveth life.” 2nd Cor. 3:6. Paul 
was a scholar but he did not depend on his scholarship. 
Well he knew the flesh profited nothing and that no 
preaching at all was better than “letter” preaching as it 
was a positive source of death. 

“And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with 
excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you 
the testimony of God.” , '**“And I was with you in weak¬ 
ness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech 
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s 
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
power.” Now Paul gives his weighty reason for the 
effacement of his scholarship, to avoid the calamity of 
devotion to poor human leaders. “That” (introducing a 
purpose clause) “your faith should not stand in the wis- 




MODERN THESES 


353 


dom of men, but in the power of God.” I Cor. 2 :l-3-4-5. 
How great, in our day is the need of the Pauline type of 
self-effacement in minister and message! As has been 
said, “Preach Christ Crucified in a crucified style/ 
Even Paul’s message originated outside of his own re¬ 
sources. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to 
think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of 
God.” II Cor. 3:5 he wrote in connection with the 
reference to his God-given ability to minister the glor¬ 
ious gospel message. Victory over Official Importance, 
is another contextual characteristic. Paul disclaims 
any right of lordship. Although God had used him in 
their salvation and sanctification and anointing and 
sealing and establishment, that was incidental and of 
God’s sovereignty,—Paul, the instrument, stands ,on 
common ground with them, as needy as they, and hav¬ 
ing no priority to God’s favor over them on this ac¬ 
count, rather, he wrote, “together He establishes, 
anoints and seals us.” Any authority he had over them 
was not ecclestiastical, but spiritual, by reason of help¬ 
ful service, hence Paul reminds them he would exercise 
no primacy over them, he leaves that for the Pope and 
numerous protestants who covet a following and 
authority; he is content with helpful ministry of “spir¬ 
itual gifts,” a “second benefit” or grace, etc.. By this 
we would not intimate that there should not be proper 
reverence for those over us in the Lord. “Not for that 
we have dominion (Lordship R. V.) over your faith, but 
are helpers of your joy: for by faith (in God and not 
Paul, as he before wrote) ye stand.” II Cor. 1:24. 

He writes further of Victory over self exaltation and 
complacency (II Cor. 3:1) as well as of self effacement. 




356 


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“Do we begin to commend ourselves ?” “Not he who 
commends himself is approved but whom the Lord com- 
mendeth.” Do we remember that this spirit of self-com¬ 
placency with achievements, attainments, successes, or¬ 
ganizations, machinery, work, or wisdom, is akin to the 
self-exaltation of the angels who fell? “He that glorieth, 
let him glory in the Lord.” We should discriminate be¬ 
tween gratitude for fruits and complacency. Whatever 
power Paul had was contained in an earthen vessel that 
the “excellency of the power might be of God and not 
of us.” 

He writes of victory of forgiving love toward an 
offending brother. He took Christ as his forgiveness. 
Christ became to him a forgiving spirit to an offending 
brother. That was Paurs simple, easy way, to forgive 
those who had injured him. Christ is our life; our ful¬ 
ness. He was forgiving to his enemies and His life in 
us includes His forgiving Spirit thru us to others. He 
exhorted the Corinthians to show forgiving love to the 
offending brother and then showed them how he had 
easy victory in forgiving by Christ the forgiving One 
being his forgiveness. “To whom you forgave anything, 
I forgive also; for if I forgave anything, to whom I for¬ 
gave it, for your sakes, forgave I it in the Person of 
Christ.” II Cor. 2:10. Paul immediately adds that the 
instilling of the unforgiving Spirit is one of Satan’s grand 
devices. “Lest Satan should get an advantage over us, 
for we are not ignorant of his devices.” II Cor. 2:11. 
The heart Christ does not occupy in His Person as a 
Spirit of forgiveness, Satan indwells as an unforgiving 
spirit. 

One of the most outstanding things apart from vie- 




MODERN THESES 


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tory over sin which Paul triumphed over in Christ, was 
Tribulation,—Affliction. —An element accompanying 
victory in Paul’s time little recognized as contingent 
with victory now. It was no “unconscious suffering” 
either, but dominant, painful, conscious, ever-present suf¬ 
fering. The very letter to them descriptive of his victor v r 
was written from a suffering heart. “For out of much 
affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with 
many tears.” II Cor. 2:4. So conspicuous is the element 
of suffering that after his salutation to the church, he 
immediately launches into a description of the God of 
all comfort: “Who comforteth us in all our tribulation 
(R. V. affliction) that we may be able to comfort them 
which are in any trouble, by the comfort (measure of 
power to comfort) wherewith we ourselves are com¬ 
forted of God.” For as (only as) the sufferings of Christ 
abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth by Christ. 
And whether we be afflicted it is for your consolation 
and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the 
same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be 
comforted (in affliction) it is for your consolation and 
salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast knowing 
that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be 
also of the consolation. For we would not, brethren, 
have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in 
Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above 
strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But 
we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should 
not trust in ourselves but in God which raiseth the dead. 
Who delivered us from so great a death (past), and doth 
deliver (present) in whom we trust that He will yet 
deliver us” (future) II Cor. 1:4-10. 




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The foregoing extended quotation relative to Paul’s 
suffering precedes the text. We subjoin below very ex¬ 
plicit words descriptive of Paul’s suffering which follow 
the text in such close proximity as to suggest that when 
Paul wrote of triumphant victory he had in mind the 
kind which empowered him to overflow with joy in all 
his afflictions: “We are troubled on every side,” “we 
are perplexed,” “persecuted”, “cast down,” “always bear¬ 
ing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” 
“For we which live are always delivered unto death for 
Jesus’ sake.” “So then death worketh in us”. II Cor. 
4:8-12. He also wrote of our “light afflictions” and his 
“perishing outer man” in which he endured afflictions, 
necessities, tumults, labors, watchings, fastings, evil re¬ 
ports, accusation of deception, daily dying, chastisement, 
sorrow, poverty, of such dire degree that he had nothing, 
and within the brief compass of the thirteen chapters 
there is the amazing array of nearly one hundred and 
fifty words descriptive of sorrow, trial, trouble on every 
side, affliction, tribulation, pain, weariness, hunger, 
opposition and persecution. Turning to the history of 
Paul’s travels in Acts where the scenes of his conflicts 
are more minutely recorded, we find, as he himself spoke 
under the influence of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, liter¬ 
ally bonds and afflictions abide me” in every city with 
the possible exception of Berea and yet from this city 
persecuting Jews shadowed his trail to the next city on 
his itinery and there executed bitter persecution. 

At Antioch “they were filled with envy and spake 
against those things which were spoken by Paul, con¬ 
tradicting and blaspheming.” Again they raised perse- 




MODERN THESES 


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cution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out 
of their coasts. 

At Iconium Paul “so spake that a great multitude 
of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.” But the 
unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their 
minds evil affected towards the brethren (Paul and Bar¬ 
nabas). And here, though the Lord gave gracious con¬ 
firmation to his word and sealed their ministry both with 
signs and wonders, the apostles were rewarded for their 
labor of love by “an assault made both of the Gentiles 
and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them 
despitefully and to stone them.’ , 

Escaping the shower of stones the Farewell Com¬ 
mittee gave him at Iconium, Paul reaches Lystra. Here 
he healed the poor lame man impotent in his feet, 
crippled from his “mother’s womb” and though at first 
the grateful inhabitants would have sacrificed to, and 
worshipped them, they ultimately yielded to the impor¬ 
tunity of the “Indignation Committee” which followed 
Paul from Antioch and Iconium filled with hatred and 
determined to close all doors against the messenger of 
Jesus Christ. These false religionists persuaded the 
people (of Lystra) and having stoned Paul, drew him 
out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Here it 
seems God raised him from the dead through the 
prayer of the disciples who formed a prayer circle about 
his prostrate, bleeding body, for shortly he rises up and 
returns to the city and the next day is able to travel 
to Derbe. 

In a short while Paul returns to Iconium and Lys¬ 
tra where he had been stoned and later to Antioch 
where the Stoning Committee was organized. Here he 




360 


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exhorts the disciples to continue in the faith (rather 
than the system) and informs them that tribulation and 
suffering are not only appointed for him but that they 
too “must through much tribulation enter into the 
kingdom of God.” 

At Phillipi where Lydia of Thyatira was converted 
and Paul delivered, in Jesus’ Name, the damsel who 
was possessed with a spirit of divination, the magis¬ 
trates instead of giving Paul and Silas justice, com¬ 
manded them to be beaten. “And when they had laid 
many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, 
charging the jailor to keep them safely.” Here God 
intervenes by an earthquake to deliver His persecuted 
preacher. 

At Thessalonica Paul only affirmed “This Jesus 
whom I preach is Christ”. Here the unbelieving Jews 
“moved with envy, took unto themselves certain lewd 
fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company and 
set all the city on an uproar”, accusing Paul of turning 
the world upside down, finally arresting him but letting 
him go on receiving security from Jason. 

At Corinth he was pressed in the spirit and testified 
to the Jews that “Jesus was the Christ.” He was re¬ 
assured here by a vision in the night that God was with 
him and would protect him from bodily harm. The 
Jews being restrained from violence a year and six 
months, finally broke loose and “made insurrection 
against Paul, and brought him to the Judgment seat.” 
In Corinth also was the scene of the trouble with the 
false exorcists. Paul had trouble everywhere. 

At Ephesus where Paul preached the Kingdom of 
God and magnified the Name of the Lord, his enemies 




MODERN THESES 


361 


spoke evil of the way. Here he had the strife over Diana, 
the goddess of the Ephesians, boldly preaching that there 
are no gods that are made with hands. The people were 
filled with wrath against the fearless preacher and the 
city was filled with confusion. When the uproar had 
ceased and the tumult subsided, Paul found the disciples, 
embraced them and departed for Macedonia. 

In Macedonia he was harassed by the Jews who lay 
in wait for him as he was about to leave for Syria. 

At Traos he preached all night and was interrupted 
by an auditor falling down thru the third loft, to whom 
Paul descended and raised him from the dead and then 
continued his sermon until day break. 

On one occasion forty men bound themselves with 
an oath to kill Paul. At another time he was in danger 
of being torn to pieces. 

At Philip’s house in Caesarea he was warned by the 
prophet Agabus that if he assayed to go to Jerusalem 
he would be bound hand and foot. His friends sought to 
dissuade him from the hazardous journey but only to 
bring from his lips the noble, burning words of devo¬ 
tion to Jesus: “I am ready not only to be bound but also 
to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 
Here they went about to kill him. Thus the record of 
unprecedented suffering, sorrow and persecution con¬ 
tinues until he is beheaded at Rome. 

The first objection to the Pauline life of suffering 
being typical for all believers is that Paul as the Lord 
said, was a chosen vessel, and would be shown how great 
things he must suffer for Jesus’ sake. We recognize the 
exceptional element in Paul’s persecutions. And yet he 
frequently intimates to the disciples that they tcro must 




362 


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expect opposition: “Yea all that will live godly in Christ 
Jesus shall suffer persecution.” A greater than Paul 
said of His disciples: “Ye shall be hated of all men for 
my name’s sake”; and “in the world ye shall have tribu¬ 
lation.” 

Again Paul wrote “If I please men I am no longer 
the servant of Christ.” Is not the sentiment now to 
study to accomplish what annuls our claim of servants 
to Jesus—men pleasing? Has the offense of the cross 
ceased? Is the woe still true that the Master pronoun¬ 
ced on His disciples when all men speak well of them? 
Does history prove that anything worth while in the 
Kingdom of God ever came to men without strong an¬ 
tagonism? Would it be worth while if the element of 
opposition were lacking? What claim have we to re¬ 
lationship with the Crucified Founder of Christianity 
and to His sixtyfive million love martyrs who sealed 
their faith with their blood, when we have the com¬ 
mendation of the world which martyred Him and them? 
Do we not often have the approbation of men at the 
cost of God’s displeasure? If good men praise us we 
may well praise God but some men’s praise should 
cause us to tremble and drive us to our knees. If our 
type of ministry rebukes, instead of justifies the wicked 
for reward, we will still find men who will hate the 
prophet of God who reproves within the gates and they 
must antagonize him in some form. In olden time the 
penalty was the dungeon or the stake, now the cost in 
branding, and false, unfair representation and eccles- 
tical excommunication and anonymous communications 
and the severe letting alone. The reproaches of those 
who reproached God fell on Christ. Will not men 




MODERN. THESES 


363 


who are not His, reproach those who are Christ’s? 
There is enmity between Christ and Satan, will there 
not be between Christ’s and Satan’s? 

It is not a fair victory message to keep in abey¬ 
ance the element of suffering. Jesus assured His dis¬ 
ciples there would be persecutions and afflictions and 
promised peculiar divine aid in that hour. “Blessed 
are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you 
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely 
for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for so 
persecuted they the prophets that were before you.” 
Matt. 5:10-12. “If you be reproached for the name of 
Christ, happy are ye: for the spirit of glory and of 
God resteth upon you.” I Peter 4:13. 

Has the “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak 
well of you” been annuled? What did Jesus mean 
when He said if men persecuted Him they would per¬ 
secute His followers also? And if the world hated 
Him it would also hate His? Really it would seem 
that without some measure, at least, of opposition, we 
may well doubt the genuineness of our victory. Let 
us fairly state the matter: Victory in Christ is not all 
roses;-it is not a perpetual honeymoon; not all moun¬ 
tain-top ecstacy; it is not like the placid lake, smooth 
and calm always. There are terrible conflicts and 
storms and fiery trials of faith and fierce opposition 
from men, demons and devils. There will be times 
when we shall be called to fellowship His sufferings 
and experience His loneliness. Times when the Father 
will seem to hide His face from us, as from Christ 
when He hung in agony on the Cross, when we will 
have to walk by naked faith, stript of all feeling. 





364 


MODERN THESES 


There will be times when “the exceeding great and 
precious promises” will seem hidden from us. There 
will be tunnel experiences. We will know the world’s 
hate, at which we are told not to “marvel” (or think it 
strange), since it hated Him before it hated us. “Woe 
unto you when all men speak well of you.” 





MODERN THESES 


365 


The Impossibility of Having Fellowship 
With God While Refusing to Fellowship His 
Humblest Followers 

CHAPTER XXVII 

“Apart from fellowship with God, man is 
valueless; there is no purpose in his existence, 
he would better not have been born. ,, 

“Whom Christ receives, receive ye.” Paul. 

As far as we are from fellowship with the humblest 
believer in Christ, marks not our distance of fellowship 
from him but it is the exact distance we are from being 
in fellowship with the God with whom he is in fellow¬ 
ship. There is no such thing as fellowship with God 
while we refuse to be in fellowship with the lowliest 
with whom He is in fellowship. 

As Frank H. Decker wrote: 

“Dives is separated from Abraham who represents 
God in the parable. Dives is as far from fellowship from 
God as he is from fellowship with the poor beggar with 
whom God is in fellowship. The distance between Dives 
and Lazarus, who is in the bosom of Abraham, is the 
exact distance which Dives is from God and not from 
Lazarus; for the degree to which the sefish spirit separ¬ 
ates us from fellowship from the most unselfish men is 
the degree in which that spirit separates us from the 
fellowship of God. We cannot be in fellowship with 
God while we have a spirit that separates us from fellow¬ 
ship with His most obscure and humble children. The 
parable of the Prodigal son illustrates the difficulty that 
God experiences in entering into fellowship with all of 




366 


MODERN THESES 


His children. What draws one class of men to Him is 
the very thing that repels another class from Him. The 
Father’s treatment of the prodigal, which drew him away 
from a life of sin into a life of filial fellowship, embittered 
the elder son’s heart against both His Father and his 
brother, so that when one son came to the feast of fellow¬ 
ship which the Father had prepared for both his sons, 
the other withdrew from it. The elder brother wanted 
fellowship with his Father but not with his brother. He 
was angry when told that he could not have fellowship 
with his Father except in company with his brother. 
He was deaf to the entreaties of his father to unite in 
fellowship with him because of the presence of his 
'brother! The Father craved a fellowship which should 
unite him with both of his sons, (and with His elect in 
and out of all churches) but alas, the one did not desire 
fellowship with the other, though each wished union 
with the Father. How sad this experience of the Father 
who could not enjoy fellowship with His sons because 
of their refusal to fellowship each other! That is the 
experience that God has today, as He seeks union with 
all classes of men, while they hold themselves apart 
from each other. Great bodies of so-called Christians 
seek for themselves an exclusive communion with God. 
Little do they dream that their refusal to include in 
their fellowship with God the company of others who 
enjoy that fellowship, though not of their fold, excludes 
themselves from the fellowship of God! He who seeks 
fellowship with God but is not willing to share it with 
men like the prodigal will seek it in vain! He who 
knocks at the door of the kingdom of God with this 
selfish spirit will find himself knocking at a door that 





MODERN THESES 


367 


will not open. Any man (or church) who seeks fellow¬ 
ship with God solely on his own behalf, without any 
disposition to crave it for others, will seek it in vain. 0 

Selfish, sectarian, unChristian, revivals, erect an 
insurmountable barrier, against Christian fellowship! 
The report goes forth of a great revival with scores and 
hundreds, professing. Wonderful! But we must insist 
that the test of its genuineness is the after fruit in like¬ 
ness to the Spirit of Jesus! Nor is it long until the 
opportunity to reveal its depth is given—others come 
to town preaching the same truths which brought the 
great revival. And, amazement, there is a refusal of 
fellowship and cooperation by the wonderful converts? 
Why? Oh, it is outside our church and we have little 
interest outside our charmed circle; we are taught to 
cling to our own vine or bush. Exactly! and in pro¬ 
portion as we do we are unlike Jesus, who, by example, 
withered this same selfish spirit in the Jews who re¬ 
fused to have any dealings with the Samaritans. He 
talked to a fallen Samaritan woman at the well. He 
further exposed the inharmoniousness of this spirit 
with His own spirit by saying there were other Sheep 
not of their fold which were so dear to Him He must 
bring them also and that so far as the Jews having a 
selfish monopoly on God’s grace, others would come 
from the North and South and East and West, and 
enjoy the fellowship of the kingdom of Godl 

In proportion to our exclusive spirit are we desti* 
tute of the Spirit of Christ! A man meets another man. 
Both claim to be Christians. The familiar question is 
asked: '‘Where do. you belong?” that is, “to what 
church do you belong?” The answer is a disappoint* 




368 


MODERN THESES 


ment to the questioner; he does not belong to his 
church. The questioner grunts a disgruntled grunt. 
Presently another party accosts the two. The ques¬ 
tioner immediately asks him the partisan question, 
“Where do you belong?” and Oh, Joy, the glad answer is 
given, he belongs to the same sect as the questioner, 
who shows his unfeigned happiness by saying: “It cer¬ 
tainly does seem good again to meet some one who be¬ 
longs to your own church.” Here is manifestly an im¬ 
possibility to heartily fellowship the other good brother 
because he did not belong to the same sect. How much 
simpler is the Bible condition of fellowship: “If we walk 
in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship (with¬ 
out effort; effort to have fellowship reveals its absence 
in one or the other) one with another”; and, “One is 
your Master even Christ and all ye are brethren” who are 
in Him. 

How startling! that our selfish refusal of fellowship 
to the man who loves God whether in our church or iii 
another or in none is the loss of the fellowship of God! 
The healed blind man whom the Jews refused to fellow¬ 
ship whom they excommunicated, casting him out of 
their synagogue, is soon sought by the Lord Jesus and 
welcomed to His fellowship though without the reli¬ 
gious system. Oh, for the broadening vision of Jesus 
to include in our fellowship all whom He fellowships! 
When they cast out the poor blind man another Man 
w i as cast out with him, the Man Christ Jesus! When 
we despise the least who believe on Him we despise 
Him, when we refuse to love and fellowship the most 
unprepossessing follower of Jesus we grieve Him and 
exclude Him from our fellowship. The Jews claimed to 




MODERN THESES 


369 


be in fellowship with God and they claimed Abraham 
for their ancestor but Jesus whom God sent and whose 
day Abraham rejoiced to see, who was before Abraham, 
they refused to fellowship and thus mutually excluded 
themselves from the fellowship of God and Abraham; 
if God were their Father, as they claimed, they would 
love Him whom God sent and if Abraham were their 
ancestor they would reverence Him whom Abraham 
reverenced: For, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same 
hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledged the 
Son hath the Father also.” First John, 2:23. If a man 
say I have fellowship with God and at the same time 
refuse to fellowship his brother with whom God fel¬ 
lowships he is a liar, for he that fellowships not him 
whom God fellowships is himself excluded from the 
fellowship of God; he who fellowships God fellow¬ 
ships also his brother whom God fellowships; this is 
no violation, to substitute fellowship for love; for when 
in love with God we are in fellowship with Him and 
when in love with our brother we are in fellowship with 
him; when out of the love of God we are out of the love 
of our brother and consequently out of fellowship with 
both. Absence of fellowship with a brother who is in 
fellowship with God is thus the absence of love for our 
brother and this involves the presence of hate and can 
not fellowship the object of its hate and hate is murder 
so that the final outcome of the refusal of fellowship to 
those in fellowship with God is identical with hate 
which is the same as a murderous spirit! Think of it! 
A murderous spirit has taken possession of the man who 
refuses to fellowship the man who is in fellowship with 
God! 




370 


MODERN THESES 


If we are in fellowship with God we are in effort¬ 
less fellowship with all those who enjoy fellowship with 
God. If we refuse to fellowship the one whom God fel¬ 
lowships we lose the fellowship of God or have it not; 
our distance from fellowship with the man with whom 
God is in fellowship, let us again say, is not our distance 
from the man himself, but it properly is our distance 
from the God with whom he is in fellowship. In other 
words we are as far from fellowship with God as we are 
from fellowship with the humblest one who enjoys God’s 
fellowship. The rich man would seek to enjoy his fel¬ 
lowship with God while his heart is dead to fellowship 
with his poor brother. “The Pharisee seeks communion 
with God while he refuses to speak to a brother. What 
the elder brother wanted was something from which the 
younger brother was excluded. What many of our 
churches want today is a life in God from which others 
in other churches are excluded and from which unfor¬ 
tunate individuals are excluded. Bring such a man as 
this younger brother fresh from a life of shame, into 
many of our churches and many of the men and women 
of culture would be angry at his presence.” 

“Selfishness in man contradicts the very nature of 
God and makes fellowship with Him impossible. All of 
a man’s belief in religious dogma and practice of reli¬ 
gious forms will not give him the least crumb of fellow¬ 
ship with God, so long as he remains in bondage to the 
selfish spirit. He who would permit another man to lie 
in his friendlessness and sickness and poverty unminis¬ 
tered to, at his gate, could not possibly have any fellow¬ 
ship with God by means of any thing he might do in 
mere observance of forms or rights of religion. Jesus 




MODERN THESES 


371 


solemnly warns us that the love which prepares a soul 
for fellowship with God is a love that goes far beyond 
one’s near relatives or (church or sect) ; that it is a love 
that includes the least of God’s children, that does not 
pass by the man that s “down and out” (or up and out?), 
at the gate or in the gilded hall. No man can have 
Christ’s fellowship with God except as he have Christ’s 
love for men.” 

Fellowship with God is inconsistent with partisan 
limitations. It is not as one said “two or more fellows 
in the same ship” which would imply that they must be 
in the same denominational ship to have the fellowship. 
Rather it is a fellow-feeling one has for all who enjoy 
fellowship with God! Righteousness rather than loca¬ 
tion in its basic condition. The woman at the well said 
to Jesus, Mount Gerizim is the place to worship God. 
Jesus replied it was not a place where men worshipped 
God as they thought but in what spirit they worshipped 
God! Peter perceived, after the illuminating vision that 
in every nation he who feared God and worked right¬ 
eousness was acceptable to him. If this is so on the 
ground of being in the nations it must be so in the de¬ 
nominations too as they are in the nations. Away with 
our unfair tests of Christianity by the way men stand to 
us or to our denominations: rather let us place the 
emphasis on their attitude to God and righteousness. 

“I fear that most of those who profess the name or 
Christ are still so ignorant of His real Spirit that they 
will not enter into loving fellowship with those who 
most need the encouragement of their friendship. Their 
attitude toward their repentant brothers is proof that 
they do not share for them' the love of the Heavenly 




372 


MODERN THESES 


Father. That man who will not gladly fellowship one 
who has lived a life of shame, now that he or she has 
repented of it cannot possibly have fellowship with God, 
for one can have fellowship with God only as one fellow¬ 
ships the poorest man or woman whom God fellowships. 
The church, when it excludes those who are poor in 
money or education or character, while it gladly wel¬ 
comes those whose chief attraction is their money or 
social standing, excludes Another also and all of His 
friends. He is the Heavenly Father and they are all of 
those who are in union with Him. When you exclude 
the humblest of God’s repentant children from your lov¬ 
ing fellowship, you exclude Him. Fellowship with God 
apart from fellowship with those whom He loves you can 
never have. This is a tremendous truth, is it not? How 
it explains the absence of the Spirit of the eternal God 
from many of our churches! No man can share Christ’s 
fellowship with God who does not share Christ’s love 
for man.” “Christ’s Experience of God.” 

A very pathetic incident came under our observa¬ 
tion recently: a meek brother, despised by those who 
should have welcomed him to their fellowship, because 
they claimed to be in fellowship with Jesus, rebuffed and 
set at naught and persecuted so that he feared to be 
seen in the assembly lest they should violently eject him 
(cases like this have been known in camp meetings 
where perfect love was preached) from the church. So 
he meekly came to the services because he detected a 
note of sympathy to all of the Lord’s sheep in the mes¬ 
sages; but for fear of detection and ejection he would sit 
in the rear of the building behind an iron post and 
quickly and quietly slip out at the conclusion of the 




MODERN THESES 


373 


service; he finally came to us and explained his not 
taking part in the testimony service: “I am getting so 
much help out of the services and the Word is such rich 
food to my soul that I am keeping perfectly still lest they 
(my enemies) deprive me of hearing the Word.” Thus 
ignorant enthusiasts for the “Higher Life” would seek 
to bind the Word of God. But thank God, it is not 
bound! 

When there is burning indignation at the presence 
in the choir of a redeemed fallen one, there is a legiti¬ 
mate question of the depth of our sanctity. Whomever 
Christ receives to His loving fellowship we gladly re¬ 
ceive to ours. 

The call to the fellowship of God’s Son, as Paul 
wrote, includes the call to the hearty fellowship of all 
enjoying that fellowship: the exclusion from our fellow¬ 
ship of any who enjoy His fellowship automatically 
shuts us off from the exalted fellowship. 

Our opposition to the man of God registers our 
opposition to God in Him; the Jews who stoned Stephen 
were really trying to kill God who spoke through and 
shone out through Stephen’s life; apart from God in 
Stephen there would have been no enmity. Alignment 
with God brings the fire of enmity from those who spurn 
Him; those who reproach God by a law of necessity 
must reproach those who are God’s. Our distance from 
those who hold intimate converse with God fixes our 
distance from God. If we are in true fellowship with 
God we are by a law of necessity inducted into fellow¬ 
ship with all those whom God fellowships. While in fel¬ 
lowship with God it is not possible to despise one of the 
little ones who believe on Him. The impossibility of 




374 


MODERN THESES 


those out of fellowship with God having fellowship with 
the man who enjoys His fellowship is not because of any 
disagreement in doctrine or views but because of a differ¬ 
ence in nature—the lack of that new nature which just 
fellowships God without effort and all in His fellowship. 
Fellowship with God to the one without it, and with 
those in His fellowship, is impossible till the hindrance 
is removed. It is not, as often expressed, I can not have 
fellowship with so and so but I can not have fellowship 
with their God. There is an inevitable inability to fel¬ 
lowship the man in touch with God when we are out of 
touch with God and the hindrance to the fellowship, the 
separation is not in him but in us. In nature there are 
certain elements, like oil and water, which can not be 
induced to mingle and in music there are inharmonious 
discordant notes and in grace we must be in tune with 
the Infinite to be in accord with those in symphony with 
Him. Paul asks the unanswerable questions: 

‘I would not that ye should have fellowship with 
devils. Ye can not drink the cup of the Lord, and the 
cup of devils (at the same time) : ye cannot partake of 
the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.” 

“For what fellowship hath righteousness with un¬ 
righteousness? and what communion hath light with 
darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? 
or what part he that believeth with an infidel? And 
what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” 

Annanias was prejudiced against Paul and refused 
to extend to him the right hand of fellowship until God 
took him for a walk down a street called Straight; he 
then eagerly extended his hand to Paul and greeted him 
as “Brother Paul.” Oh that all Christians would take 




MODERN THESES 


375 


this kink-straightening walk with God and then would 
they greet each other as brothers. It took even more 
then the original Pentecostal Baptism with the Holy 
Spirit purifying the heart and speaking in tongues, to 
show Peter that he was to fellowship everybody with 
whom God was in fellowship. 

Let us dismiss the idea that we may be in God’s 
favor w r hile we look with contempt, derision or scorn on 
the most despised believer in Christ; he that loves God 
loves his brother also; he who loves God with all his 
heart has the necessary complement of loving his neigh 
bor as himself; he who is in fellowship with God is in 
fellowship without effort with his brother who is also in 
fellowship with God; he whose conscience is void of 
offense toward God is likewise toward man; if we 
restrict our fellowship in its free outflow with God, 
God restricts His fellowship with us to the same 
degree we refuse it to those who enjoy it: refusing 
to fellowship the one in fellowship with God auto¬ 
matically cuts off our fellowship with God and brings 
a sense of uneasiness or consciousness of interrup¬ 
tion to our fellowship. The Levite and Priest who 
refuse to fellowship in helpful ministrations the man 
waylaid on the road by thieves are themselves excluded 
from the fellowship of God who was looking for some 
one to show His Spirit to the unfortunate man; to refuse 
helpful service to the sick and needy and imprisoned is 
to refuse it to Jesus; to give the cup of cold water in His 
Name is to be sure of the reward of His loving fellow¬ 
ship ; to refuse our fellowship to those who crave it is 
to cut off Another who hungers for it. Shortly after we 
were married and income was exceedingly small, wife and 




376 


MODERN THESES 


I fed a poor tramp who had had nothing to eat for three 
days. Believe me, if you will, but as we gave of our 
scanty food supply and he ate as one famished there stole 
into his countenance a wondrous illumination which 
more and more reminded us of Jesus—we were feeding 
the poor hobo as unto Him and in His Name and we 
found we were feeding Jesus as He said: “Inasmuch is 
ye do it unto the least of these my brethren ye do it unto 
me.” And when in sectarian narrowness we refuse fel¬ 
lowship to the least of these who believe on Him we 
refuse fellowship to Jesus. In that same community 
there came another unfortunate seeking fellowship and 
sympathy; he knocked at many of the doors of the homes 
of the professors of exalted piety and was harshly and 
rudely told to begone; He obeyed! Crushed and dis¬ 
couraged he walked a pace down the railroad track and 
ended the search for sympathy by hanging himself to a 
tree in sight of the homes of the professors of a Christ- 
less Christianity and a Pharisaical, unmerciful holiness. 

A brother, during a camp meeting, courteously in¬ 
vited the writer and a co-worker to spend the night at 
his home. We accepted the kind invitation and prepared 
to go with him, when a member of the committee rushed 
up to us and forbid us to go because the man said he was 
of the devil. But we saw no reason to violate our prom¬ 
ise to him so we went over the committee’s protest. We 
were curious to gather the.facts of his relation to Satan. 
They were these: One night after preaching he was 
innocently called on to pray and while praying the glory 
came down and the seeker was beautifully filled with 
the Spirit; we found on entering his home that the walls 
were decorated with inspiring Scriptural mottoes; we 




MODERN THESES 


377 


further found that he had sold his farm and gave the 
proceeds of the sale to the poor—giving as many as 8000 
free meals in a year; that he gave all of his time and 
income to the work of the Lord; before leaving in the 
morning this man whom prejudice said, was filled with 
the devil, observed that my friend’s clothes were shabby 
and gave to him a beautiful broad-cloth ministerial suit 
which would now be worth $100.00 and which fit him 
to perfection. We were not a bit jealous but we would 
not have minded if he had had another one like it in our 
size! So we would not feel slighted he gave us a liberal 
sized check and planted the kiss of brotherly love upon 
our cheek. When my friend and I reached the street we 
turned and faced each other and said almost in unison, 
“If that man is of the devil, as his enemies say, the Old 
Boy has got converted, hasn’t he?” Ah, the Christianity 
of Christ enables us to welcome to our loving fellowship 
all whom God welcomes to His loving fellowship! We 
are companions of all them who keep His precepts! We 
gladly become associates of those who for Christ’s sake 
are made gazing stocks by a scoffing world! Thank God 
for the power to identify ourselves with the unpopular 
man! We dare not do otherwise; to despise him would 
be to despise Christ! It would be to surrender our man¬ 
hood. 

“A man will lose faith in the truth he has when he 
makes it the final truth for it is not that, and if he seeks 
to hold it as such, he must lose it. From him that hath 
some truth that which he hath shall be taken away if 
he will not surrender it to the larger truth when it comes. 
A man can keep a partial truth so long as it is all the 
truth he has seen; but when he closes his eyes to the 




378 


MODERN THESES 


larger truth when it appears, he will find that he can 
not hold the smaller truth in sincerity.” 

How few care enough for fellowship with God to 
maintain it at the loss of fellowship with unspiritual 
men! 

Fellowship with God for Christ was costly exposing 
Him to suffering and death at the hands of men who 
despised that fellowship; the reproaches of them who 
reproached His Father fell on Him; our fellowship, too, 
with Him and His, will expose us to the antagonism on 
those who little esteem fellowship with Him. Our pref¬ 
erence of His fellowship contrasts vividly their rejection 
of His fellowship and will become the ground of perse¬ 
cution. 

We should not seek fellowship with God merely for 
its joys but for its righteousness. 

Fellowship with Christ will often include fellowship 
with the unpopular man and cause. 

To enter into Christ’s fellowship with God we must 
have Christ’s motive to do the will of the Father; not a 
mere purpose to do it but a preference to do it when 
its doing is costly. 

Violation of the will of God interrupts our fellowship 
with Him; a moment’s spiritual fellowship with God is 
impossible as long as we hold on to one darling sin. 

Let us recapitulate the sin of unfellowship with 
those with whom God is in fellowship— 

He who fellowships God fellowships also his 
brother who is in fellowship with God. 

The Jews wanted fellowship with God but they did 
not want it on condition of fellowship with the despised 







MODERN THESES 


379 


Samaritans and they would not share it with the Gen¬ 
tile dog. 

The scholars of the law want fellowship with God, 
but the Amharets, the poor ignorant, unlettered common 
people they hold in contempt; they regard them who 
know not the law as accursed. This is the imperialism 
of scholarship, which Jesus, to rebuke, chose His dis¬ 
ciples largely from the “ungrammatikos”, the unlettered, 
calling not many wise. 

Again, the Jews claimed fellowship with Abraham 
as their Ancestor, and Moses for their leader and God 
for their Father; but Jesus the Son, the Divine Son, of 
their reputed Father and who was held in reverence by 
their leader—“of whom Moses in the Law and the 
prophets did write” they held in contempt as an 
impostor, a babbler and a low fellow born of forni¬ 
cation. They wanted fellowship with God, Moses, Abra¬ 
ham and the prophets but Christ sent by One and the 
theme of the rest they would exclude utterly from their 
fellowship. But if they were in fellowship with Abra¬ 
ham in the remote sense of being his descendants He was 
the father of all who had faith in Christ, the father of the 
faithful; he saw the day of Christ and rejoiced to see His 
day; Abraham reverenced Christ and if they were in fel¬ 
lowship with Abraham they would reverence Him whom 
Abraham reverenced; if they were the disciples of Moses, 
Moses wrote of Jesus and they would revere Him of 
whom their leader Moses wrote; and if they were the 
children of the prophets they all wrote of Christ so that 
refusing fellowship with Christ they are excluded from 
fellowship with all the rest. If God were their Father 
they would love His Son; if they were the children of 




380 


MODERN THESES 


Abraham they would do the works of Abraham and obey 
the teachings of Moses about Christ. But what they 
really wanted was a fellowship with God and the 
prophets from which Jesus was excluded and thus deny¬ 
ing the Son they lost the Father—“Whosoever denieth 
the Son the same hath not the Father.” 

How much condemnation do we heap to ourselves 
by claiming to be children of the Fathers—to be fol¬ 
lowers of Wesley. If we were really so, we would do 
the works of Wesley. One instance: many of his reputed 
followers were filled with the spirit of war and are, and 
would be on occasion, again filled with that spirit whic.i 
would inevitably lead to the killing of those who are 
in fellowship with God and whom we must fellowship 
and regard as God regards them if we are in His fellow¬ 
ship! John Wesley characterized war “the sum total 
of all villianies.” 

The elder brother wanted fellowship with His 
Father but was filled with fiery indignation at the 
thought that its condition was a willingness to share it 
with his prodigal brother now that he had turned from 
a life of sin. God had no fellowship for the elder brother 
which He was not willing to share with the younger 
brother now that he was repentant. That is a wonder¬ 
ful truth that God s fellowship is immediately the portion 
of the sinful when they return from sin. And he would 
beget in us an attitude toward the sinner like His own. 
If we refuse to fellowship men and women, however 
sinful they may have been when they turn from their 
sin, we are refused the fellowship of God who fellow¬ 
ships them. 

I recall the case of a party who had lived a life of 




MODERN THESES 


381 


horrible sin and when awakened by the Spirit to the 
enormity of their sin was tempted to commit suicide by 
leaping into the river because said they, no one will 
ever have anything to do with me, I have been such 
an awful sinner. We replied that they should not leap 
into the river because of the discovery of the only thing 
in them to recommend them to the mercy of God, their 
ungodliness, for He justifies the ungodly, not the Godly, 
not the Righteous, but the unrighteous and that need 
not trouble you that you will be spurned by your fel¬ 
lows for all have sinned; there is no difference; and 
redeemed by the blood of Christ you will be dearer to 
me than the members of my own family who spurn 
that redemption which is in Him, the ties of grace being 
nearer than the ties of nature. They speedily entered 
into righteousness by faith and were soon in very active 
Christian work. 

The society church wants a fellowship of respec¬ 
tability with God which is exclusive of the poor and 
the fallen even though they repent. But excluding them 
they exclude Him. Their indignation at the reception 
of the poor and lowly is indignation at their Redeemer. 
As there is no other way to serve Him here except by 
acts of kindness to our fellows in His Name there is 
likewise no other way to register our opposition to Him 
except unkindness to those whom He fellowships. 

Aannanias wants a fellowship with God from which 
the repentant transformed Paul is excluded, erroneously 
judging Paul to be what he had been before he had 
repented of his persecuting spirit. 

Peter wants to be in the charmed circle of an exclu¬ 
sive fellowship with God from which Cornelius whom 




382 


MODERN THESES 


he despised and whom he regarded as an unclean Gen¬ 
tile, is excluded. 

As usual the one who is refused the fellowship is 
right with God and the one refusing to give it is in the 
wrong. What a spectacle! Paul and Cornelius right 
with God and Annanias and Peter so holy and exclusive 
and bigoted and prejudiced that they will not fellowship 
those who are on intimate terms with the God, whom 
they blindly imagine they may be in good standing with 
while they maintain the attitude so grievous to God. 
The vision cures Peter and the walk with God down a 
street called Straight takes the narrowness out of Annan¬ 
ias. We wish those who magnify so much the com¬ 
pleteness of sanctification and the evidence of speaking 
in tongues would see in the light of the narrowness of 
these prominent leaders both of whom had doubtless 
been to Pentecost and received all of its manifestations, 
that there is a necessity of further teaching subsequent 
to that time to develop the soul in the fine point of Chris¬ 
tian courtesy and the impossibility of continuing in the 
fellowship of God while excluding from our fellowship 
men whom God fellowships. How foolish to spurn the 
man God welcomes! ;How ludicrous to stand aloof from 
the one God accepts! What a sight! the “great I am” 
associating in fellowship with people whose company we 
are ashamed to be seen in! Ashamed to treat with the 
brotherly spirit those whom He is not ashamed to call 
brethern! We were once assisting in a communion serv¬ 
ice in which the presence of God was vividly manifested. 
Noticing a brother and his wife refusing the table of the 
Lord we personally invited them to join us. The wife 
was inclined to come forward but the husband was surly. 




MODERN THESES 


383 


Pressed for his reason he said that we did not go far 
enough in the ordinance; we did not wash feet. “But is 
not God consciously in our midst ?” “Yes, we feel that He 
is but we can not fellowship with you because you do 
not wash feet.” We tried to point out how precarious 
was his position in refusing to join in a service God was 
so consciously blessing and sealing to all hearts. No 
matter, he must maintain his theory even if he loses the 
fellowship of God in doing so. What a sight! The crea¬ 
ture refusing to participate in what, according to his own 
admission, the Creator sanctioned! 

Dives wants fellowship with Abraham who repre¬ 
sents God in the parable but he does not propose to fel¬ 
lowship the low beggar whom he despises at his gate and 
whose plea for alms he refuses; the Priest and Levite 
are fresh from the temple worship of God and think that 
they are thereby in good standing with God, but they 
have no thought of fellowship with the unfortunate man, 
robbed, beaten and left to die by the road who was also 
dear to God; and they care less for the good Samaritan 
who embraces the opportunity to demonstrate to the un¬ 
fortunate, God’s willingness to fellowship and minister 
to him. Oh, how sad to judge a man’s relation to God 
by his zeal for formal temple worship! Or by his enthus¬ 
iasm for the endless round of church activities which 
often are utterly foreign to the work of the Lord. A 
living faith in Christ demonstrated by loving helpful 
service to our fellows is far more acceptable to the Lord 
than the most elaborate ritual with no faith in His Son 
and no service to our fellows as its complement. All 
formal worship followed by no loving service to others 
in His Name, is a grief to God. 




384 


MODERN THESES 


Simon wants a fellowship with Christ which ex¬ 
cluded the poor, broken-hearted, penitent, weeping adul- 
tress who at Jesus feet weeps out her sorrow for her 
sins, abandoning them there and immediately entering 
into His fellowship. Simon’s refusal to share fellowship 
with the repentant adultress automatically cuts him off 
from the possbility of fellowship with Christ who had 
entered into fellowship with her. What a startling truth 
is this! How by it God would search our hearts and 
humble us to confession. 

The wife who refuses her fellowship to the husband 
who is in fellowship with God is herself excluded from 
the fellowship of God who commands her to reverence 
her husband, be kindly affectionate to him, render him 
due benevolence and be in subjection to him in the Lord 
and learn from him at home, keeping it, rather than the 
State, and her refusal to comply with these command¬ 
ments of God is not refusal to the husband as she may 
suppose, but to the God who made him head over her 
in the Lord. A woman once said to the writer, “Oh, 
what terrible darkness I have gotten into because I have 
allowed the devil to instill hatred toward my husband.” 

Fellowship with God and all those who enjoy His 
fellowship is effortless-effort to have fellowship with the 
man or woman in God’s fellowship annuls it in either 
one or the other. John does not say that if we walk in 
the light we try to have fellowship but we have it and 
that is anything in one’s possession—we do not struggle 
to get what we have. 

If we restrict our fellowship from any one with 
whom God is in fellowship God at the same time, re¬ 
stricts His fellowship’s free expression from us An ex- 




MODERN THESES 


385 


elusive fellowship with God is impossible for it excludes 
Christ from our fellowship as He thinks of the other 
sheep not of our fold. My father-in-law and his daugh¬ 
ter, my wife, once assayed to go to the communion table 
in an exclusive close communion church and were 
promptly rebuffed by the preacher in charge with whom 
father remonstrated: “My daughter and I are both mem¬ 
bers of the body of Christ and yet you have excluded us 
from His table.” The reply was, “You know our belief*' 
—(that is what is wrong with many of our beliefs, they 
are ours and not His). 

Let us again quote Decker to whom we are indebted 
for the germ thought of this chapter: “Our distance of 
fellowship from the man who is in fellowship with God 
is not properly our distance of fellowship from the man 
himself but it marks the exact distance we are from 
being in fellowship with the God with whom the man 
we refuse to fellowship is in fellowship.*’ 

A startling thing about the sin of unfellowship for 
those who are in fellowship with God is that it is the 
same as a murderous spirit for it is the absence of love 
and that is equivalent to the presence of hate which 
hates the object of its hate and is consequently a mur¬ 
derous spirit for whoever hates his brother is a mur¬ 
derer and though he does not actually kill his brother 
as Cain, yet the presence of hate in his heart is the same 
as murder, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer** 
and he must kill his influence and refuses him loving 
fellowship. As we have before said whoever loves God 
has the complement of loving his brother also and is 
consequently in fellowship with him whom he loves and 
whoever fellowships God fellowships also his brother 




386 


MODERN THESES 


who is in that fellowship and not to do so is hate and 
that is equal to murder. 

Fellowship with God excludes a sectarian spirit; 
also a narrow party spirit or a no sect-spirit are incon¬ 
sistent with fellowship with God for He loves the whole 
world and not the little sect-world or smaller no-sect- 
world. Men of all parties want unity and fellowship 
with others but on condition of all getting in with them, 
neither being willing to make concession to the other 
for the sake of unity and power, each thinking in bigoted 
narrowness that his party is the infallibly right party 
thus having the assumption of infallibility like the old 
Hierarchy with its infallible head. But God offers per¬ 
fect unity and fellowship to all the mistaken parties on 
condition of all being inducted into the Spirit of His 
Son. “One is your Master even Christ and all ye are 
brethren.” 

Until the thing which hinders fellowship with God 
and all those with whom He is in fellowship is removed 
there will be uneasiness and the consciousness of an 
interrupted or retarded fellowship with Him and all 
those who are in His fellowship. 

To have fellowship with God costs something; it 
cost Christ the enmity of the elders, priests and people 
of His day, who spurned that fellowship. Our fellow¬ 
ship with Christ cannot be continued without increasing 
cost to us; like the call of duty it will exact ever more 
and more of us; we cannot maintain it while we attempt 
to fellowship the unspiritual; with it we can have no 
intimate friends who are not also intimate friends of 
our Christ; continuing in His fellowship may exclude 
sympathetic fellowship with our loved ones in the flesh 




MODERN THESES 


387 


and it will ever exclude fellowship with the world which 
knew Him not and which cannot know those who are 
His and are like Him. 

We should not seek fellowship with God merely 
for its joys or ecstatic thrills, but because we love Him 
and feel our need of Him, and—amazing thought—He 
craves our fellowship! 

Fellowship with God is impossible while we hold on 
to one darling sin. “If I regard iniquity in my heart 
the Lord will not hear me.” 

When we cast any out of our fellowship (as the 
healed blind man was cast out of the synagogue) who 
are enjoying His fellowship, there is Another who goes 
forth with them and reveals Himself to them. What 
spirit is that which makes a man ashamed to be seen 
walking or in converse with a humble lover of Jesus? 

Fellowship excludes all darkness—“Have no fel¬ 
lowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” It calls 
for separation from all evil. It excludes all unspiritual 
men from its intimacy, though not from its sympathy; 
it excludes all disobedient children while they abide in 
disobedience. Fellowship is with the Father and with 
the Son: we are called to the fellowship of His Son, or 
to a fellowship such as the Son enjoys with the Father— 
“That they may be one in us.” 

Fellowship has a doctrinal basis—“They continued 
in the doctrine of the apostles and in fellowship.” 

We are called to the fellowship of His sufferings— 
the joy set before Him for which He endured the cross, 
was the joy of obtaining that suffering and enduring to 
gain a people for His Name, His Body and His Brid?. 




388 


MODERN THESES 


He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in Him. 

Many of the branches of the so-called Church of 
Christ have been founded in spiritual pride and the 
assumption of superiority a spirit out of harmony with 
the spirit of Jesus; and they are maintained in suspicion 
and jealousy that others will treat them as they did 
others in their origin. They are bound to build them¬ 
selves up with little thought of the interests of others 
and less thought I fear of the transcendent interest of 
the paramount cause of the kingdom of heaven, the 
interest of which is preeminent to the success of any 
one of the so-called branches of His church. Hence each 
seeks what is impossible, an exclusive fellowship with 
God, which they can never have, God having nothing 
for any of them He is not willing to share with the rest. 
It is not unkind to state some patent facts: The Naza- 
renes want a fellowship with God but they are not very 
enthusiastic for fellowship with the Free Methodists 
and the Holiness people of the National Interdenomina¬ 
tional Association, which is evident because they ridi¬ 
cule the National often and regarded themselves supe¬ 
rior to the Free Methodists else they would have joined 
them instead of starting an independent movement of 
their own: thus the exclusive spirit enters in and raises 
one more effective barrier to that unity among all God’s 
people so essential to the powerful revival needed. The 
International Church wants a fellowship with God but 
they suspect the Nazarenes of wholesale depridations 
among them merging their church into theirs; the Pente¬ 
costal Movement seeks a fellowship in some instances 
which excluded the Alliance and in turn the Alliance 




MODERN THESES 


389 


looks with suspicion on the Pentecostals and gives them 
a restricted fellowship. The Alliance people, while har¬ 
boring some of God’s choicest elect, are very much 
afraid of the holiness people and exclude them from their 
fellowship and this spirit is fully reciprocated by the 
holiness people, who, look upon them as unsound 
suppressionists; the holiness people in Methodism want 
fellowship with God from which they often exclude the 
independent holiness people: our Free Methodist friends 
want fellowship with God but it is difficult for them to 
see how a man may be sanctified and remain within the 
pale of the old Mother Methodist Church—they do not 
seem overjoyed at the good people of God in other folds. 
The Comeouters or so-called Saints of God—want a fel¬ 
lowship with God but they do not readily see that God 
has an elect everywhere in the older churches, a rem¬ 
nant, a seven thousand company who have not bowed 
the knee to Baal and they do not gladly endure as Paul 
wrote all things for this elect’s sake. The Colleges in 
the University Senate want a fellowship with God from 
which the unofficial colleges without the Senate of their 
own creation are excluded, caring little for them except 
for the students who, by insinuation of the inferiority 
of the independent, unendowed, unequipped smaller 
school, they can beguile to finish their education with 
them: and even the independent schools are guilty of 
the sinful respect of persons fawning on an alumni often 
which is mediocre and despising the so-called under¬ 
graduate whom God may mightily employ. Oh, for a 
mourners-bench somewhere large enough to accommo¬ 
date all Christendom in a penitential service over all its 




390 


MODERN THESES 


grievous misrepresentation of the Spirit of that Christ 
it professes to represent! 

The One-fold Gospel people want fellowship with 
God but they deride the Two-fold Gospel people and 
two-fold Gospel people have contempt a plenty for the 
three-fold gospel people and they in turn look askance 
at the Four-fold Gospel people who spend much time 
exposing the error of the two-folders: the two-folders 
also spending much time exposing the get it all in one 
fold and the four-fold people are loathe to see how there 
may be any improvement in their four-fold shibboleth 
looking askance upon those who emphasize its mani¬ 
foldness. 

God has over-ruled the sad divisions to good and 
the writer is well aware of the Lord’s excellent people 
everywhere within and without the organized church. 
He blesses notwithstanding the mistake or He would 
not bless at all and some there are who argue that the 
divisions are a blessing but it is very evident that the 
Lord could have done far more without the divisions. 

God has nothing for the exclusive churches from 
which He would exclude other churches despised by 
them; He has nothing for the Methodists that He would 
not freely share with the Baptists. He has no blessing 
or light or gift or grace or healing or spirit of prayer 
for the Missionary Alliance that He would not gladly 
bestow on the Episcopalians; He has no Higher Life 
blessing for the Holiness Church devotee that He would 
not share with the Presbyterian; nothing for any one 
assembly of believers, He would not gladly give to all. 
Someone has well said that if the Church was living 
where she should, all the gifts would be manifested. 




MODERN THESES 


391 


To have fellowship with the Pentecostal man I 
must speak in tongues and this very speaking in tongues 
which is the passport to his fellowship becomes the de¬ 
portation from fellowship with the man who does not 
speak in tongues; to fellowship the man who thinks the 
healing of the body is in the atonement, like the salva¬ 
tion from sin, for all, I must see that truth as he sees it 
but this very step cuts me off from fellowship from the 
man who thinks the great consideration of the atone¬ 
ment is salvation from sin and that healing is incidental; 
to have fellowship with the suppressionist I must see his 
suppression doctrine and if I do the eradicationist will 
exclude me from his fellowship and to have the fellow¬ 
ship of the eradicationist I must be an eradicationist; 
and so on this line of reasoning might be pursued 
through all the mazes of difference in doctrine and prac¬ 
tice of all the sects. It is an utterly un-Christan and 
vicious requirement, foreign to the Spirit of Christ who 
unites all in Himself on the submission to His Personal 
Lordship and not on doctrinal agreement, but fruit. The 
only way for the Christian in this sad hour of division 
is to follow the Apostle Paul in his freedom from all 
men that he might serve all men—Recognition and joy 
at all the good in all, reproof without contempt for their 
error as God gives us to see it, sympathy and well wish¬ 
ing for all, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in 
the bond of peace with all in that unity and praying for 
those without it: “Unity in diversity; charity in liberty;” 
malice toward none; love for all—and yet freedom from 
a tolerance which fellowships sin. 









MODERN THESES 


393 


“He who goes nearest in time to Christ the crucified, 
Will go nearest in Eternity to Christ the Glorified 


“Lefevre could not forgive himself that he had not come 
forward more manfully in defense of the truth. One day, 
not long before his death, it is said, while seated at the table 
of the King and Queen of Navarre, he was observed to be 
overcome with emotion. When Margaret expressed her 
surprise at the gloomy deportment of one whose society she 
had sought for her own diversion, Lefevre mournful ex¬ 
claimed, ( How can I contribute to the pleasure of others, 
who am, myself, the greatest sinner on earth?' In reply to 
the question called forth by so unexpected a confession, 
Lefevre, while admitting that throughout his long life his 
morals had been exemplary and that he was conscious no 
flagrant crime had been committed against society, pro¬ 
ceeded, in words frequently interrupted by sobs, to explain 
his deep penitence: ( How shall I who have taught others 
the purity of the gospel be able to stand at God's tribunal? 
Thousands have suffered and died for the defense of the 
truth which I have taught them; and, unfaithful shepherd 
that I am, after attaining so advanced an age, when I ought 
to love nothing less than I do life — nay, rather, when I 
ought to desire death—I have basely avoided the martyr's 
crown and have betrayed the cause of my God.' His grief 
was so great that his friends could scarcely restrain him. 





394 


MODERN THESES 


Thousands of young men were solemnly warned by these 
words of remorse from one who had been so eminent in 
translating the Scriptures, and in teaching and writing ex¬ 
positions of them, to take heed lest, when , hazing preached 
to others, they themselves should be castaways /*' And let 
men of God in this day be warned that the offense of the 
cross has not ceased and that if they preach the pure Word 
of God without the stamp of peculiar party leanings, they 
will be persecuted; and that the present time , of all times 
in history, demands a peculiar courage to be true to Jesus 
Christ. 

One suggest that those professing Christians who claim to 
believe the Bible from cover to cover and yet live as though 
its promises were not true were potential Higher Critics and 
a greater menace to Christ's cause than the avowed Higher 
Critics—m other words one might as well openly avow him¬ 
self a Higher Critic as to defend the Bible against the High¬ 
er Critic while he practices what he condemns the avowed 
Higher Critic. For, whose sin consists in setting aside cer¬ 
tain portions of the Word of God and he does it openly but 
the professor who fights Higher Criticism as a dogma and 
practices its deductions in setting aside other portions of the 
Word of God, who can find out? 

It is little different if one avowedly be a Higher Critic 
or if in practice he be one—in either instances the World of 
God is set aside. The avowed Higher Critic says Moses did 
not -write Pentatuch the potential Higher Critic says he 
stands for the whole Bible yet sets aside its teaching by the 
sinful respect of persons or the violation in the equity it 
teaches. 




MODERN THESES 


395 


A Plea for Manliness 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

Emerson said that God will not have His work 
made manifest by cowards! Of all times that demand 
courage this is the time! It demands men of backbone! 
Men of sterling worth ! Fearless, courageous men! Men 
of daring! Men of conviction, and the courage of their 
conviction! Men who will dare to stand for truth! Real 
manhood is the need of the hour—God give us in these 
trying times, Men! A glance at the perfect manliness 
of the Master will inspire us: 

Thomas Hughes wrote, in the Manliness of Christ, 
“the last test and proof of our courage and manliness 
must be loyalty to truth—the most rare and difficult of 
all human qualities—for such loyalty, as it grows in per¬ 
fection asks ever more and more of us, and sets before 
us a standard of manliness always rising higher and 
higher.’’ 

“And this is the great lesson we shall learn from 
Christ’s life, the more earnestly and faithfully we study 
it. ‘For this end was I born, and for this cause came I 
into the world, to bear witness to the truth.’ To bear 
witness against avowed and open enemies is compara¬ 
tively easy. But to bear witness against those we love 
against those whose judgment and opinions we respect, 
in defense of that which approves itself as true to our 
own inmost conscience, this is the last and abiding test 
of manliness. How natural, nay, how inevitable it is, 
that we should fall into the habit of appreciating and 
judging things mainly by the standards in common use 




396 


MODERN THESES 


amongst those whom we respect and love. But these 
very standards are apt to break down with us when we 
are brought face to face with some question which takes 
us ever so little out of ourselves and our usual moods. 
At such times we are driven to admit in our hearts that 
we, and those we respect and love, have been looking at 
and judging things, not truthfully, and therefore not 
courageously and manfully, but conventionally. And 
then comes one of the most searching of all trials 
of courage and manliness, when a man or woman 
is called to stand by what approves itself to their 
conscience as true, and to protest for it through 
evil report and good report, against all discouragement 
and opposition from those they love or respect. The 
sense of antagonism instead of rest, of distrust and alien¬ 
ation instead of approval and sympathy, which such 
times bring, is a test which tries the very heart and 
reins******Emerson’s hero is the man who, ‘taking both 
reputation and life in his hand, will with perfect urbanity 
dare the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute truth of his 
speech and rectitude of his behavior.’ ” As another sug¬ 
gests the sorest trial in such times is the temptation that 
perhaps we were mistaken in a course which evoked 
so much opposition. 

“In testing manliness we shall, sooner or later, have 
to reckon with the idea of duty—the refusal of which 
will annul manliness. Trace further the manliness of 
Christ: ‘This young Peasant, preaching from a boat or 
on a hillside, sweeps aside at once the traditions of our 
most learned doctors, telling us that this, which we and 
our fathers have been taught, is not what the God of 
Israel intended in these commandments of His; but 




MODERN THESES 


397 


that He, this young Man, can tell us what God did really 
intend’ ”; that He was before Abraham and is greater 
than he; that He is greater than their cherished Temple; 
that He can give commandments that Moses could not; 
that He is Lord of the Sabbath; that He has power on 
earth to forgive sins; that He would fill up the Law 
with new meaning; that their traditions are worthless— 
and their worship, which teaches for doctrines, com¬ 
mands of men, vain,—this is courageous language which 
at once arouses the fierce, hard, Jewish spirit to frenzy. 
Follow Him further: the multitude whom He fed would 
make Him king and Nicodemus would honor him with 
an interview at night but “He commits Himself neither 
to the mob nor to the noblemen.” See Him courageously 
enter the temple! unofficially! No authority from the 
priests! “He, not even a Levite, a mere peasant from a 
despised province, had presumed to exercise authority 
in the very temple precincts! Authority and courage 
that no priest had dared show before Him!” Think 
what a similar act would mean now! To go into a fine 
modern church and purge out many of the unspiritual 
and their doings! Arrest would be inevitable! The 
temple, one suggests, was an object of worship with the 
Jews which usurped the worship of Jehovah and Jesus 
goes to the heart of the difficulty, to the root of the 
idolatry—“He showed them that He had no superstition 
about this splendid Temple of theirs;” His zeal was for 
His Father who was obscured by its activities! To exalt 
Him to the proper place in their Worship was His aim. 
The Temple, a magnificent place in which to worship 
God, was a poor place to worship, if God was excluded. 

Again it took manliness to refuse the worship of the 




398 


MODERN THESES 


crowd whom He had fed ; who clamored to make Him 
king 1 —(to successfully resist the test of success requires 
more manliness than to endure defeat)—Today many 
would grasp at this honor and at once organize the 
crowd into a church with themselves as their head; 
Jesus withdrew, disappointed, into the mountain; He 
felt that the great lesson of Himself as their spiritual 
bread, which He had thought to convey had been lost 
on the multitude. 

See again, His manliness in His conference with 
Nicodemus: As Thomas Hughes wrote: “There is, de¬ 
pend upon it, no severer test of manliness than our be¬ 
havior to powerful persons, whose aid would advance 
the cause we have at heart. But from beginning to end 
there is no word to catch this ruler or those he repre¬ 
sented ; no balancing of phrases or playing with plausi¬ 
ble religious shibboleths, with which Nicodemus would 
be familiar, and which might please, and perchance, 
reconcile, this well-disposed ruler, and the powerful per¬ 
sons he represented. ,, Had Jesus talked to Nicodemus 
about traditions and the value of external righteous¬ 
ness through payment of tithes, formal almsgiving, fast¬ 
ing and perfunctory praying, Nicodemus would have at 
once been pleased and have given to the zealous young 
reformer a letter of recommendation to all the priests 
and synagogues of the land and the way would, with 
such powerful commendation, been comparatively easy 
for Christ—But there is no fawning! No grovelling! 
No playing for patronage! No effort to get his backing! 
No respect of persons! No bowing before the great or 
rich! Christ ignores everything cherished by Nicode- 





MODERN THESES 


399 


mus and introduces something startlingly new: “Nico- 
demus, you must be born again or you are lost!” 

Courageous manliness is seen in His conversation 
with the woman of Samaria on the well: “The same 
splendid directness and incisiveness characterize His 
teaching at Samaria. There, again, He attacks at once 
the most cherished local traditions, showing that the 
place of worship—Mount Gerizim—matters nothing, the 
object of worship everything”—worship not being a mat¬ 
ter of a location but of a specified Spirit and in truth. 
Those who thus worship the Father anywhere within 
temples or without, are acceptable to Him. All are 
familiar with the abundant fruitfulness from His con¬ 
versation with the woman at the well—the nearby city 
is stirred with a general revival; the field was one which 
easily yielded its fruit. But the Master’s manliness 
again is seen in leaving, after two days, this easy field: 
“The seed is sown and He passes on, never to return 
and garner the harvest; deliberately preferring the hard, 
priest-ridden lake cities of the Jews as the centre of His 
ministry. He will leave the ripe easy field for others to 
reap. This decision, interpret it as we will, is that of 
no soft or timid reformer.” 

In this incident, the Lord’s love and grace, and 
freedom from the opinions of men, is seen, in that He 
talked to her who wae a despised Samaritan with whom 
His people, the Jews, had no dealings; in talking alone 
to a questionable character of the opposite sex; in be¬ 
friending one whom the Hierafiahy banned; in rebuking 
her pet religious tradition that Mount Gerizim was the 
only proper place to worship God; courage to»o is seen 
in His leaving this easy freid (after fwto' day's’ fetibrj, 




400 


MODERN THESES 


which gave so ready a response to His message, de¬ 
liberately choosing to go and labor among those who 
were filled with resistance and hatred, in the hard, priest- 
ridden lake cities. 

A final instance of His manliness is gleaned from 
His return to Nazareth while His doings at Jerusalem 
are still fresh in the minds of His townspeople and kins¬ 
folk. They are excited and divided as to His doings. 
Every Evangelist knows how desirable it is to have at 
least one haven to which to go for rest and relaxation. 
“A thousand reasons would occur for Christ to speak 
soft things, at such a moment: for accommodating His 
teaching, here at any rate, to the wants and tastes of 
His hearers, so as to keep a safe and friendly asylum at 
Nazareth, amongst the scenes and people He had loved 
from His childhood. It is clear that some of His family, 
if not His mother herself, were already seriously 
alarmed and displeased. They disliked what they had 
heard of His teaching at Jerusalem and on His way 
home, which they felt must bring Him to ruin, in which 
they might be involved. He must have seen and con¬ 
versed with them in His own home before that scene 
in the synagogue, and have had then to endure the bit¬ 
ter pain of alienating those whom He loved, and re¬ 
spected, and had reason to love and respect, but who 
could not for the time rise out of the conventional and 
respectable way of looking at things/* 

“To stand by what our conscience witnesses for 
truth, through evil and good report, even against all 
opposition of those we love, and of those whose judg¬ 
ment we look up to and should ordinarily prefer to fol¬ 
low; to cut ourselves off deliberately from their love 




MODERN THESES 


401 


and respect, is surely, I repeat, one of the most severe 
trials to which our manliness can be put.” 

His bold speaking when men clamored for His life 
and when any word might prove fatal to safety; His 
message to Herod as that fox about His determination 
to do cures today and tomorrow until perfected; His un¬ 
flinching devotion to duty in the face of bitter antagon¬ 
ists; His going on with the work in hand His Father 
had given Him to do, His refusal to be influenced by the 
false standards of men: after being stoned, immediately 
curing a blind man, allowing none of the stormy scenes 
through which He passed to divert Him from the 
Father's business; escaping the mob at Nazareth who 
sought to throw Him over the precipice and like Jeri- 
miah of old, when released from prison, preaching “thus 
saith the Lord” of His Father; going back to Jerusalem 
when of late they had sought to stone Him there; and, 
finally, facing Judas and his mob and Pilate and Herod 
and the rabble and the Cross, when He had power not 
to, all these are evidences of the highest manliness. God 
give to reader and writer His spirit of courageous manli¬ 
ness so that we shall unflinchingly face the call of duty 
whenever and wherever it comes in His Name and 
strength. Without Him we can do nothing but thru 
(Him that loved us we are more than conquerors—Praise 
His Name! 

To break from the traditional, conventional and 
unreal way of looking at things, and to look at them 
honestly; to break from traditions which are hoary with 
age and venerable with reverence, yet which fail the 
test of reality and break down in the light of the fuller 
revelation of Truth; to break from the narrowness and 




402 


MODERN THESES 


exclusiveness of false standards; to break for liberty 
and to reach out beyond the vision of our own nation 
and denomination—away from bigotry, exclusiveness, 
and sectarianism, which would arrogate to itself super¬ 
iority over others who are dear to God; and to include 
in our love all nations and denominations, requires the 
strength of the supernatural. Only Christ Himself 
working in us, can accomplish the work. 

Jesus Christ grew up amidst the most exclusive 
narrowness; He was a child of the most exclusive race 
and yet dared to speak of the Temple as His Father’s 
House and a House of Prayer for all nations! Dared to 
state that His Father’s love was not confined to the 
Jews, but that He loved the world; dared to be cour¬ 
teous to despised Samaritans. He said He had other 
sheep not of that fold, and that men would come from 
every direction of the compass and sit down with the 
patriarchs in the Kingdom. God, alone, manifest in the 
flesh, could do this courageous thing. 


> 




MODERN THESES 


403 


The Spirit’s Manifestations 

CHAPTER XXIX 

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to 
every man to profit withal.” Every (spirtual) man has 
some manifestation of the Spirit. The manifestation of 
the Spirit is given for the recipient’s profit and the 
glory of God. 

Let me call attention to the fact that Christ did 
not speak in other tongues as the evidence of His being 
anointed with the Holy Ghost. There was a voice 
accompanying his baptism, but it was not His, but the 
Father’s, saying: “This is my beloved Son in whom I 
am well pleased.” It is true He did doubtless speak 
Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, but there is no evidence 
with which we are conversant, that these languages 
were miraculously conferred upon Him at the time He 
received the Holy Spirit. They were the vernacular of 
the day with many, and the presumption is strong that 
Jesus, being studious, learned these languages by appli¬ 
cation, or His pure mind absorbed a working acquant- 
ance with them from contact. 

To say that the speaking in tongues at the time of 
the reception of the anointing of the Holy Ghost, is an 
accompaniment in every instance, is to say that the Son 
of God was never properly anointed with the Holy 
Ghost. True He said others would speak in other 
tongues, and it is true that IHe said that the Father 
dwelling in Him spoke the words, and He may have 
been inspired by Him to speak in other tongues, but we 
are simply saying of Hs case that it is not recorded. 




404 


MODERN THESES 


On the day of Pentecost there seems to have been 
given a known language with the Holy Ghost baptism, 
or the miracle of understanding, (the word “hearing” 
being so translated) another’s language as though it 
were one’s own. 

This phenomena seems to have dropped out of the 
church with the exception of sporadic instances. Bishop 
Taylor tells of one instance where one of his mission¬ 
aries to Africa was miraculously endowed with the 
dialect of a tribe to whom he preached. Our own per¬ 
sonal observation is limited to one case of a real language 
being conferred and the interpretation being instantly 
given and sealed by the Spirit in conviction of the 
hearers. In permitting this phenomena to drop out, it 
does seem that the Lord has allowed a most rapid way 
for the evangelization of the world to pass, “But known 
unto God are all His ways,” and “shall not the Judge of 
all the earth do right?” And by this we are not saying 
that there are not numerous instances of speaking in a 
real language as the Spirit gives utterance, but are 
simply recording our limited observations. 

But there is another tongue spoken of in Corin¬ 
thians, sharply contrasted with the type of speaking in 
tongues at Pentecost. It is the unknown tongue, out¬ 
side altogether the realm of salvation or sanctification 
(the Pentecostal baptism being sanctifyng) which no 
one is convicted for not having; which all men do not, 
or cannot have; which is altogether in the realm of the 
sovereign disposal of God, and divided as He wills, and 
classified with eight other Supernatural Gifts of the 
Spirit, of which a man may receive when, or after he 
has received the sanctifying baptism with the Holy 




Ghost. But this tongue is not the evidence that he has 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost proper; it is only the 
evidence that he has the gift of this tongue; no more is 
it the evidence that He has the baptism of Pentecost 
than the conferring on him by the Lord of the gift of 
healing, or any other of the nine supernatural gifts of the 
Spirit. These gifts are simply gifts and not works of 
the Spirit, like regeneration or sanctification. They 
have no reference to our salvation. They are the evi¬ 
dence of the possession of themselves—gifts. 

Paul said of the unknown tongue that he !had 
tongues more than all: he thanked God for it: he would 
that they spake in tongues—all of them: let them speak 
by course. His final word was—“forbid not to speak 
with tongues.” 

Some moderns are wiser than Paul. If he were here 
today and should write or speak the regulations given 
the Corinthians, he would be adjudged a tongues’ man, 
heretic and fanatic. He said that he who spake in a 
tongue edified himself. There should be no objection to 
this. Thank God for edification! But there is some¬ 
thing higher than self-edification. He said that the man 
who prophesied unto the edification of others was 
greater than the man who merely edified himself, un¬ 
less he had the Divine interpretation given to him, and 
then he was promoted to the rank of the man who had 
the gift of prophecy. 

SOME CONTRASTS 

All the disciples had the phenomena received on the 
day of Pentecost. Of the unknown tongue of the Corin¬ 
thians he said: “Do all speak with tongues?” Such is 




406 


MODERN THESES 


our observation today—no matter how much they seek. 
Is this also not the observation of the reader? 

On the day of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Ghost 
and its attendant manifestations, (which Wesley said 
might again be restored as the Lord's coming drew near) 
was directly used for the conviction of others. The 
manifestation of unknown tongues was for the edifi¬ 
cation of self—the man thru whom spoken. 

At Pentecost, all understood the speaker. Of the 
Corinthian type, no man understands him: further, he 
does not understand himself what the Spirit is saying, 
unless God gives him the gift of interpretation. Only 
the God who inspires him, understands him. His mind 
is not at work, but unfruitful, his spirit is prayer thru, 
the understanding being suspended during the operation. 

Because Paul gives such a strong statement as to 
the comparative value of speaking in tongues and 
prophesying—he would rather speak five words in his 
native tongue for the instruction of the people than ten 
thousand words in an unknown tongue, there is a 
disposition to minimize or ignore altogether, this Scrip¬ 
tural truth. Let us remember that no Word of God is 
void of power and that all Scripture is given by inspira¬ 
tion of God and is profitable. The gift of tongues serves 
the purpose of self edification and inspiration, Paul regu¬ 
lated its exercise and advised others to forbid not its 
manifestation; he said that when it is accompanied by 
the gift of interpretation of the Spirit’s utterance, it is 
equal to the valuable gift or prophesying, unto comfort 
and edification of others. This writer does not speak in 
tongues, known or unknown, save his mother tongue; he 
is trying, however, to be free from all prejudice and to 




MODERN THESES 


407 


be fair with all. There are many grievous things in the 
wake of the movement called the Tongues’ Movement, 
but hardly more grievous than can be found in any other 
movement. It is not fair to indulge in wholesale con¬ 
demnation because of single instances of inconsistency. 
This course would repudiate every existing religious 
organization. Let us welcome good when it comes to 
us in lowly guise. It is a truism that so much counter¬ 
feit implies the genuine somewhere. This is not the 
same as countenancing all the wild, wierd manifesta¬ 
tions evident with many of these people. 

If the Bible had not over a score of references to the 
speaking in tongues, I would follow the lead of many 
others and say that the entire movement is of the devil, 
but well I know that some of the most Christ-like Chris¬ 
tians are among them and I could give eminent instances 
of great usefulness and revival power in their midst. A 
great M. E. Church in Washington, whose pastor has 
received the gift of tongues and speaks in tongues, has 
had two thousand find the Lord in the regular services 
the past two years, including the writer’s brother. They 
have been used of God to answer prayer for the writer 
when in deep need. 

If only from the motive of my own soul’s sake I am 
unwilling to say that the entire movement is of the 
devil; I would as soon place my neck on the guillotine; 
I have literally seen the Spirit of God grieved and 
quenched by a preacher while preaching, for such an 
un-Christlike statement. I do not want to take chances 
on committing the unpardonable sin; for if just one of 
all the tens of thousands who claim to speak in tongues, 
do it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I have said 




408 


MODERN THESES 


the Holy Ghost is the devil and that His manifestations 
are the manipulations of the devil. If I am altogether 
wrong in this caution I have lost nothing; my judgment 
is imperfect, as we teach, my discernment is not entirely 
dependable, as prejudice, unfairness and unwillingness 
to see God outside of my movement may colour its oper¬ 
ations, and I at least feel restful over suspending my 
judgments until the final day. I am not supposed to be 
a judge but a doer of the Word. The Father has com¬ 
mitted all judgment into the hands of the Son; in this 
matter, He too, relieves me of the responsibility. In 
this conclusion I have lost nothing except the senseless 
opposition of unfair souls. 

On the other hand, if the one who assumes the 
opposite position is wrong he is dreadfully wrong and 
he exposes himself to terrible contingencies! He grieves 
the Holy Ghost by grieving those whom God has not 
grieved and He is found to fight against those whom 
God has accepted. If through prejudice or jealousy we 
despise even one of the little ones which believe in Jesus, 
better a millstone, He said, were tied around our neck 
and we cast into the depths of the sea. 

May we, dear reader, if this message is for you, 
beg you for your own sake to have towards those oft 
despised and persecuted people the attitude you wish the 
missionary to Africa to have towards the poor deceived 
natives? If some of them are deceived, let us remember 
that the atonement was made for them, and pray that 
God will use us to win those of them whom Satan has 
taken captive at his will; it is a fearful thing to be snared 
by the fowler; and were we in that sad deception, I am 
sure we would rejoice when someone with light, love 




MODERN THESES 


409 


and power was used of God to rescue us from our sad 
plight. It was the author’s privilege recently to labor 
in a Methodist Church where a number were led off into 
giving undue prominence to the Spirits’ manifestations; 
and thru the lifting up of Christ, to see a goodly number 
rescued from the snare of the fowler. 
























































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